{"id":51708,"date":"2026-04-24T10:19:03","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T14:19:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=51708"},"modified":"2026-04-30T11:49:25","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T15:49:25","slug":"i-regret-the-blood-pact-i-have-made-with-icloud-photos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/24\/i-regret-the-blood-pact-i-have-made-with-icloud-photos\/","title":{"rendered":"I Regret the Blood Pact I Have Made With iCloud Photos"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/pxlnv.com\/blog\/i-regret-the-blood-pact-i-have-made-with-icloud-photos\/\">Nick Heer<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/talk.macpowerusers.com\/t\/i-regret-the-blood-pact-i-have-made-with-icloud-photos\/44831\">Mac Power Users Talk<\/a>):<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/pxlnv.com\/blog\/i-regret-the-blood-pact-i-have-made-with-icloud-photos\/\">\n<p>Apple&rsquo;s next iCloud tier is a generous 6 TB, but it costs another $324 per year. I could buy a new 6 TB hard disk annually for that kind of money. [&#8230;] A better solution is to recognize I do not need instant access to all 95,000 photos in my library, but iCloud has no room for this kind of nuance. The iCloud syncing preference is either <em>on<\/em> or <em>off<\/em> for the entire library.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>So: the next best thing is to create a separate Photos library &mdash; one that will remain unsynced with iCloud. Photos makes this pretty easy by launching while holding the Option (&#x2325;) key. But how does one move images from one library to the other? Photos is a single-window application &mdash; you cannot even open different images in new windows, let alone run separate libraries in separate windows. This should be possible, but it is not.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>As a workaround, Apple <a href=\"https:\/\/support.apple.com\/en-ca\/119920\">allows you to import<\/a> images from one Photos library into another &mdash; but not if the source library is synced with iCloud. You therefore need to turn off iCloud sync before proceeding, at which point you may discover that iCloud is not as dependable as you might have expected.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>I have this library stored locally and backed up, or at least I though I did. I thought I could trust iCloud to be an extra layer of insurance. What I am now realizing is that iCloud may, in fact, be a liability. The simple fact is that I have no idea the state my photos library is currently in: which photos I have in full resolution locally, which ones are low-resolution with iCloud originals, and which ones have possibly been lost.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/mastodon.social\/@cdevroe\/116318116521024733\">Colin Devroe<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/mastodon.social\/@cdevroe\/116318116521024733\">\n<p>I&rsquo;m <em>finally<\/em> moving away from maticulously organizing my own library and just letting photos do it and using iCloud Photo Library. I&rsquo;m syncing 170,000+ items. And it says &ldquo;synced&rdquo; when clearly it is not finished.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>Previously:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2026\/01\/23\/a-lament-for-aperture\/\">A Lament for Aperture<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2025\/07\/17\/fixing-optimize-storage\/\">Fixing &ldquo;Optimize Storage&rdquo;<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2023\/10\/23\/6-tb-and-12-tb-icloud-plans\/\">6 TB and 12 TB iCloud+ Plans<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2018\/09\/25\/photos-needs-better-storage-management\/\">Photos Needs Better Storage Management<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<p id=\"i-regret-the-blood-pact-i-have-made-with-icloud-photos-update-2026-04-30\">Update (<a href=\"#i-regret-the-blood-pact-i-have-made-with-icloud-photos-update-2026-04-30\">2026-04-30<\/a>): <a href=\"https:\/\/pxlnv.com\/blog\/icloud-photos-followup\/\">Nick Heer<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/pxlnv.com\/blog\/icloud-photos-followup\/\">\n<p>The first problem is that it is very easy to get images into an iCloud-stored photo library, but extremely difficult to extract them. This issue is compounded by a lack of transparency and data verification. The second problem is that it is necessary to commit to a lifetime of storage if one uses a third-party cloud option.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>My dispute with this is not about third-party storage per se. Rather, it is how shoddy an experience it is to move photos out of iCloud and, also, my inability to verify that everything is as safe and secure as it should be.<\/p>\n<p>But I was pointed to two pieces of software I can use that made my life easier and got me onto more stable footing. The first is <a href=\"https:\/\/parachuteapps.com\/parachute\">Parachute Backup<\/a> (MacOS 15 or later), which created a backup of my entire iCloud photo library and, soon, will also be backing up everything else I have in iCloud, for good measure.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>The other piece of software to which I owe my newfound sense of calm is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fatcatsoftware.com\/powerphotos\/\">PowerPhotos<\/a>. Despite being hands-down the most frequent software recommendation from readers, it never came up in my earlier searches. I guess I was not using the correct keywords. In any case, it is an excellent application. Because I did the full Parachute backup, I felt comfortable with PowerPhotos modifying my library and generally doing its thing. It lets me easily drag photos from my primary iCloud-connected library to my archive, and its duplicate image finder is way better than the one in Photos.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nick Heer (Mac Power Users Talk): Apple&rsquo;s next iCloud tier is a generous 6 TB, but it costs another $324 per year. I could buy a new 6 TB hard disk annually for that kind of money. [&#8230;] A better solution is to recognize I do not need instant access to all 95,000 photos in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"2026-04-24T14:19:06Z","apple_news_api_id":"3f663399-dad6-4a58-ba08-d3a3c71d1df7","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2026-04-30T15:49:28Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AP2YzmdrWSli6CNOjxx0d9w","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1016,16,1142,30,2223,2818,1169,174],"class_list":["post-51708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-datacide","tag-icloud","tag-icloud-photo-library","tag-mac","tag-macos-13-ventura","tag-parachute-backup","tag-powerphotos","tag-storage"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51708"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51708\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51761,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51708\/revisions\/51761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}