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Rough strategy:

1) use iCloud Photos

2) find a Mac with a very large system drive (1tb or above)

3) open the photos app on mac and ensure settings is configured to “download originals” not “save space”

4) make sure the computer is online on a regular basis. You should see ~/Pictures/Photos.app becoming massive over time.

5) setup Time Machine for that computer

6) success! You have a second copy of your photos library on Time Machine now.

7) Use Arq.app to backup your Time Machine drive to AWS glacier. Nice! Now you have 3 copies of your library.

An alternative path is making sure you have both a giant iPhone storage and giant Mac storage. Make sure photos on phone is set to “download originals”. Manually backup your iPhone to Mac monthly. These backups include photos library. I recommend encrypting your backup and keeping a key in safe and 1Password. Continue with Time Machine and Arq.




That's a nice comprehensive approach. I'm actually pretty happy with my setup from a data loss prevention perspective. It is just that, as I approach 2 decades of saving digital photos, I question the utility of it.

My parents have photo albums going back a few generations. The family tradition is that they are passed to the cousin with the most children, to maintain for future generations. If I were handed 500K+ images in a drive or a cloud account from each family member, I doubt I would ever look at most of them. With a bound and curated album, I know they are full enjoyed by every family member with an interest in the past.


You don’t need large system drive, just any drive connected (like USB) or even on the network.

Hold Alt (Option) when starting the Photo app to invoke a dialog where you can select custom photo library location.

You can have multiple photo libraries in different locations and switch between them during Photo app start.

https://support.apple.com/guide/photos/create-additional-lib...


Awesome! I'm a huge fan of Photos for organizing photos from my external camera but don't always want to mix them up with my iCloud Photos library. I'm gonna give this a try. I wish Apple would allow iCloud Photos to handle multiple libraries like this.


For google I have it set up to generate the Takeout backups every 2 months. Easy to do


Is this the correct url?

arqbackup.com


Yup! that's the one.


[flagged]


MO is not addictive. It doesn't sell your data. There's no ads. MO saves photos in their original quality for free.




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