Move Photos Library To Dropbox

Jun 29, 2018 Open Files on your iPhone or iPad. Choose the location that has the files you want to move to Dropbox. Aug 17, 2016 First, open the Android Dropbox app and tap the three lines in the upper-left corner. A pane will slide out from the left edge. Now, tap the gear icon in the upper-right corner to access the settings. With the Dropbox settings open, scroll down to “Camera uploads” and note there are four options. Jun 08, 2021 After the move is finished, double-click Photos Library in its new location to open it. If you use iCloud Photo Library, designate this library as the System Photo Library. Make sure that the drive is turned on and available to your Mac before opening Photos. If Photos can't find your drive, it stops using the Photos Library stored there.

  1. Mac Photos Library Location
  2. Move Photos Library To Dropbox Free

Jul 12, 2017 We want to move it back to our user folder so Dropbox stops constantly updating. To move our Photos Library, we drag it to its new location, double-click it, and the Photos app will now point to it. So, that was pretty easy. We’ll next show you how to create a completely new System Photo Library. Creating a New System Photo Library. I tried using the Dropbox iOS app’s built-in feature to copy or move the photos to one of my Dropbox folders; but, on each attempt, the Dropbox iOS app hangs, after moving anywhere from few hundred to a couple of thousand photos. I then opened the iCloud app in Windows 10, intending to copy the photos en masse to Dropbox, then, once the move.

Prepare your external drive

You can store your library on an external storage device, such as a USB or Thunderbolt drive formatted as APFS or Mac OS Extended (Journaled). However, you can't move your library to a disk that's used for Time Machine backups.

To prevent data loss, Apple doesn't recommend storing photo libraries on external storage devices like SD cards and USB flash drives, or drives that are shared on a network.

Mac Photos Library Location

Move your Photos library to an external storage device

  1. Quit Photos.
  2. In the Finder, go to the external drive where you want to store your library.
  3. In another Finder window, find your Photos Library. By default it's stored in the Pictures folder located at /Users/[username]/Pictures.
  4. Drag Photos Library to its new location on the external drive. If you see an error, select your external drive's icon in the Finder, then choose File > Get Info. If the information under Sharing & Permissions isn't visible, click the triangle , then make sure the 'Ignore ownership on this volume' checkbox is selected. If it's not selected, click the lock button to unlock it, enter an administrator name and password, then select the checkbox.*
  5. After the move is finished, double-click Photos Library in its new location to open it.
  6. If you use iCloud Photo Library, designate this library as the System Photo Library.

Make sure that the drive is turned on and available to your Mac before opening Photos. If Photos can't find your drive, it stops using the Photos Library stored there.

Delete original library to save space

Move Photos Library To Dropbox Free

After you open your library from its new location and make sure that it works as expected, you can delete the library from its original location.

In a Finder window, go back to your Pictures folder (or whichever folder you copied your library from) and move Photos Library to the trash. Then choose Finder > Empty Trash to delete the library and reclaim disk space.

Move photos library to dropbox onlineLibrary

Open another Photos library

If you have multiple libraries, here's how to open a different one:

Move Photos Library To Dropbox
  1. Quit Photos.
  2. Press and hold the Option key while you open Photos.
  3. Select the library that you want to open, then click Choose Library.

Photos uses this library until you open a different one.

Learn more

If you have a permissions issue with your library, you might be able to resolve the issue by using the Photos library repair tool.

Move photos from dropbox to ipad photo library

* If the volume isn't formatted as APFS or Mac OS Extended (Journaled), or has been used for Time Machine backups but hasn't been erased, this checkbox will either not be present, or it won't be selectable after unlocking. Erase the drive for this option to be available.

Did you move the actual Photos library, or did you move the individual photos? Neither is likely to do what you want, but the recovery will be different. Either way, you will need to put your library/pictures back into the normal file system, then look for another solution to your space shortage.


If you really moved the whole Photos library, you may have done irreparable damage to it and should restore it from your backup (ideally a Time Machine backup).


If you only moved the pictures from the Photos library to Dropbox, you'll have to move the back into the Photos library before you can access them from the Photos app.

Aug 23, 2018 8:49 PM