More Mac ballachery

You're not the first person this has happened to - hopefully this'll help

https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/48830

That's a great help. Thanks.

Just as an aside, what is the reason for the distrust in the security of iCloud for file synch? Is it a work/data harbour thing?

Just a general mistrust in third party's ability to keep my personal private data secure, or not share all my private photos to Facebook or some other disaster which I just don't need to worry about if it isn't all online. I back up periodically to a HDD.

Oh and also, I don't have broadband (long story), so even though I have a huge fast data contract on the phone, it soon tears through it syncing all that data all the time.

Ok, understood. I thought it was more to do with access to the data by people other than you. Lack of broadband is also a big dealbreaker for any cloud-synch service.

I back up periodically to a HDD.

Leave it plugged in and set up Time Machine - full local system back-up that's saved my arse on many an occasion. Better still have two external HDDs and rotate them (keep one off site).

For me iCloud backup is only for certain files/photos/contacts - never a full system back-up.

Leave it plugged in and set up Time Machine – full local system back-up that’s saved my arse on many an occasion. Better still have two external HDD and rotate them (keep one off site).

For me Cloud backup is only for certain files/photos – never a full system back-up.

👍

For me iCloud backup is only for certain files/photos/contacts – never a full system back-up.

Same here. I don't use icloud as a back up, but for files that I'm going to need to possibly access from different machines.

For back up I have a SSD that backs up from my main Mac every day using Time Machine. This has saved my arse too on occasion

Backup wise - I have Time Machine, & iCloud for important/sentimental stuff so I don't lose all my files should the house ever burn down.

Anyone got any tips for syncing or backing up photos? Not using iCloud.

One of the reasons i got a mac is that i've had an iPhone for years and use it for taking and editing photos. I thought having a Macbook would make this more streamlined and make it all easy to edit them on a bigger screen etc. But whenever I plug in my phone, half the time it doesn't even detect it. Or if it does, I end up with folders full of duplicates of the photos...

I just want to occasionally empty my iPhone of photos onto my Macbook so that everything can be backed up to my external SSD.

iPhoto (or whatever it is called now) should do that when you hook up your phone. I use iCloud for photos from my camera simply because I have an old phone and it is short on space, so having iCloud with MFA on makes that a useful service.

I think about the only other thing I synch to iCloud is keyring and messages. Not contacts (marginally annoying at times), Nor anything else.

iCloud is perfect for photos.

Take pics on phone - they appear on any iCloud linked device in minutes.

I can't remember the last time I plugged my phone into my Mac!

Unless your photos contain sensitive information I don't see why you wouldn't use iCloud.

The other option is to batch select a load of photos on your phone and AirDrop them to your Mac. Again easy and simple (WiFi needs to be enabled on Mac).

Flickr will also upload your photos to camera roll which is private by default. You need to select which pics on the roll will be public. If you have a lot of pics the first synch is going to murder your data allowance.

I'm never sure I 100% trust Flickr - they have a very low profile now and I've always had this gut feeling* they'd just disappear overnight.

They wouldn't be my first choice of back-up if the photos were important.

*There is no real-life factual basis for this feeling! I used to use it a lot. And their cookies pop-up annoys me - so many options! 🙂

Unless your photos contain sensitive information I don’t see why you wouldn’t use iCloud.

Well not all my photos...

iCloud is perfect for photos.

Take pics on phone – they appear on any iCloud linked device in minutes.

I can’t remember the last time I plugged my phone into my Mac!

Unless your photos contain sensitive information I don’t see why you wouldn’t use iCloud.

Yep same here, always thought it was a great feature.

I also sync notes and key ring as the day you lose your phone could be a bit painful trying to figure out a zillion logins.

Hmm wish I did have sensitive pictures, mine are all bikes propped up against things 🙂

Apple have increasingly focused around iCloud and, if you use it, I've found it super reliable.

Easiest way to get your desktop back might be to turn iCloud on, let it sync back, then move the item to another location which you've told iCloud not to back up, then turn iCloud off completely and arrange as you want it.

Have a browse around the iCloud settings you - you can use it for some things and not others if you want.

Photos has always worked with 'connect your phone and manually sync'. Theres always a risk of duplicates if things have been edited or changed but theres now a very effective 'duplicates' tool in Photos that identifies identical shots and lets you merge them (keeping the highest resolution and metadata from both)

Personally I think the risk of you ending up with a corrupt local backup, or losing stuff because you've not backed up for a long while, is far greater than Apple screwing up. I do keep a periodic backup to disc of my music and photos as well. And really, unless your hard drive is full of 'candid' shots of your partner who's going to be interested in your photos?

And really, unless your hard drive is full of ‘candid’ shots of your partner

Well, not full exactly...

Ah the old backup quandary.

[Dad_mode]
While it’s true any backup is better than no backup. If you aren’t following the 3, 2, 1 school of thought for data you consider key, critical or irreplaceable then your data is at risk.

3 copies of your data, on 2 different media, 1 copy held off site.

Otherwise you run the risk of fire, flood, theft or virus/ransomware taking out your data & backup.

The other aspect is when did you last test your backups by trying to restore some data, trust me the time to both learn how to restore & if your backups actually worked is not when you’ve already suffered data loss.

[/Dad_mode]

I’m never sure I 100% trust Flickr – they have a very low profile now and I’ve always had this gut feeling* they’d just disappear overnight.

Flickr blew it when they changed hands.

So I set up my desktop how I like it, how I used to have it on Windows, with links to drives, pictures, and current project folders and document folders etc. Then I found out that iCloud was uploading all this to the cloud.

For balance, Windows does this too.

Ok, understood. I thought it was more to do with access to the data by people other than you. Lack of broadband is also a big dealbreaker for any cloud-synch service.

You mean lack of decent broadband?

Apple have increasingly focused around iCloud and, if you use it, I’ve found it super reliable.

Easiest way to get your desktop back might be to turn iCloud on, let it sync back, then move the item to another location which you’ve told iCloud not to back up, then turn iCloud off completely and arrange as you want it.

Have a browse around the iCloud settings you – you can use it for some things and not others if you want.

Photos has always worked with ‘connect your phone and manually sync’. Theres always a risk of duplicates if things have been edited or changed but theres now a very effective ‘duplicates’ tool in Photos that identifies identical shots and lets you merge them (keeping the highest resolution and metadata from both)

Personally I think the risk of you ending up with a corrupt local backup, or losing stuff because you’ve not backed up for a long while, is far greater than Apple screwing up. I do keep a periodic backup to disc of my music and photos as well. And really, unless your hard drive is full of ‘candid’ shots of your partner who’s going to be interested in your photos?

All of this. Because I only take photos with my phone, it’s the obvious choice for backup, plus when I get home, the photos are waiting to look at on my iPad and it’s much bigger screen.
Also, my Mac has been out of commission for ages, partly due to iffy backup issues along with a rather small HDD - it’s actually got two HDD’s, one with the OS and apps on, the other has music and photos on, but it was only 750Gb; the machine is a 2010 Mac Mini, one of the last with an optical drive, which I had swapped out for the second drive. I had a disaster where the second drive failed, and the Time Machine external drive had failed to backup properly! 😖

A friend of many years standing, who looked after all of the computers involved with print at previous places I worked at has rebuilt it, with a 2Tb SSD for the music, photos, etc, plus it’s got two 2Tb external SSD’s that backup consecutively via Time Machine, a sort of pseudo RAID system. I’ve still got to set it up again, it’s normally sitting under one corner of my telly, connected up using the telly as a 42” monitor, but there’s a rat’s nest of cables behind because it’s also connected to my AV amp… 🫣

Jesus this is driving me crazy. So I'm trying to get all my photos off my old windows machine onto my mac. I loaded up thousands of images onto a USB thumb drive thingy, opened the photos app and imported everything. All good, took out the USB drive, back into the Windows machine, delete the contents and start filling it up again for a second pass. Just go back to my Mac and all the photos I just imported have disappeared. Literally no evidence they were ever imported. Where have they gone? Were they even imported, or was it just 'references' to their location on the thumb drive?

Edit: ignore this, I'm a bloody idiot. Looks like I pulled the drive before it had even started copying over... so looks like I've just permanently deleted thousands of photos.

so looks like I’ve just permanently deleted thousands of photos.

just stop with all this tin-foil hat nonsense and use iCloud/iCloud photo syncing

if you don't have broadband for whatever reason just get an unlimited data Sim for your mobile e.g. Smarty

still on the Windows machine surely?

No, not in recycle bin anyway. Think it asked whether I wanted to permanently delete as the folder was so large. I clicked yes cos I thought I'd just imported them to the Mac.

Another thing about iCloud syncing, how are you supposed to sync image folders on a Mac and an iPhone when the storage drive on your Mac is huge and the space on the phone is tiny? I used to build the odd website and do a lot of work with Photoshop, I have squillions of images. I don't want or need all this on my phone.

Today's lesson would appear to be:

A back up is not a back-up until it's been verified.

More seriously if the pics are important, STOP using the windows machine and get the images professionally recovered. Prepare to have your wallet ravaged though.

Another thing about iCloud syncing, how are you supposed to sync image folders on a Mac and an iPhone when the storage drive on your Mac is huge and the space on the phone is tiny? I used to build the odd website and do a lot of work with Photoshop, I have squillions of images. I don’t want or need all this on my phone.

You can choose "Optimise iPhone storage" or something like that on the phone.

It has all the photos but just small thumbnails of them. It'll pull down full versions if/when you look at the photo (if you're using iCloud, not sure if you're avoiding that).

Doesn't sound quite like what you're looking for - but that's how it handles the difference in storage capacity.

Edit - to add the quote as another post appeared before I posted.

Another thing about iCloud syncing, how are you supposed to sync image folders on a Mac and an iPhone when the storage drive on your Mac is huge and the space on the phone is tiny?

Because all the data isn't stored on your phone - it's basically a preview image - there's trickery that goes on in iCloud that pulls down the data when you view an image.

Does this fall under the category of 'user error'? 😂

For photos I just use Dropbox and it automatically downloads all my photos to it when I plug my phone into my Mac

Because all the data isn’t stored on your phone – it’s basically a preview image – there’s trickery that goes on in iCloud that pulls down the data when you view an image.

And music and even your apps. Almost like it stores everything in the air itself. Its witchcraft, I tell you!

I used to build the odd website and do a lot of work with Photoshop, I have squillions of images. I don’t want or need all this on my phone.

My basic back-up procedure is:-

• Work stuff - physical HHD back-up - x2 external and the Mac itself.
• Current Work Projects - the above + Cloud Back-Up (DropBox for Work files as it keeps full copies on all linked computers).
• Personal Stuff - all on iCloud

Does this fall under the category of ‘user error’? 😂

Oh absolutely. I just can't fathom how the Mac organises files and why I can't do what I've been doing for decades and have my files in a folder. Every solution seems to involve having everything online. And if you don't want to do that you're stuffed.

I should be able to find the photos i deleted as i used to back up the windows machine regularly to an external HDD. But i'm still not confident the mac is importing everything correctly. File count from the last pass was 1781 files on the drive, but the photos app shows 1465 imported...

My basic back-up procedure is:-

• Work stuff – physical HHD back-up – x2 external and the Mac itself.
• Current Work Projects – the above + Cloud Back-Up (DropBox for Work files as it keeps full copies on all linked computers).
• Personal Stuff – all on iCloud

Similar to mine but I do extra belt and braces for an additional back up of work files to Adobe CC. I'm paying for it, so I might as well use it. Comes on handy at times when I'm on another Mac Somewhere and can just log onto my Adobe account and work live on all my stuff

@jambourgie - once you get everything sorted and set up properly, Macs just automatically sync everything so you've always got a back up of everything which will automatically sync with everything else

I can understand your issues to a degree, as putting me on a Windows machine would be like sitting me down in front of an air-traffic control system or something. I wouldn't know where to start

The folder in Photos is hidden.

Right-click the app and select "show package contents" They should all be shown in originals organised by dated folders.

I just can’t fathom how the Mac organises files

It's the same as windows..??

I can’t do what I’ve been doing for decades and have my files in a folder.

Sure you can. That's where mine all are.

I think the issue you're having is that you're "importing images" into software rather than simply copying files into folders.

Every solution seems to involve having everything online. And if you don’t want to do that you’re stuffed.

It just needs some thought.

If your photos are in separate folders on Windows just copy the folders and drop them into a new folder on your Mac named 'photos' - bypass 'Photos' app. Macs still recognizes Windows folders and folders within folders and keep things as they where on a PC.

95% of my work stuff isn't on-line. Back-ups are but the stuff I work on is on my Mac.

Photos is basically just a gallery app aimed at personal users - great for some things, shite for others.

<div class="bbp-reply-content">

I can understand your issues to a degree as putting me on a Windows machine would be like sitting me down in front of an air-traffic control system or something. I wouldn’t know where to start

</div>

Yes, it's just a learning curve. I just want to lose as little as possible while I'm learning 😁

The reasons I don't want an online solution of storage are many. One is that once everything is moved over this Mac will be going offline forever. It needs to work with loads of discontinued software and random audio interfaces which I don't want to suddenly not be able to use just because the Mac has updated something. It will just be like an offline tool frozen in time.

Perhaps a Mac wasn't the best choice for these goals in hindsight...

If your photos are in separate folders on Windows just copy the folders and drop them into a new folder on your Mac named ‘photos’ – bypass iPhoto. Macs still recognizes Windows folders and folders within folders and keep things as they where on a PC.

OMG THANK YOU

That's literally all I want to do. How do you look at them though?

<div class="bbp-reply-content">

I think the issue you’re having is that you’re “importing images” into software rather than simply copying files into folders.

</div>

That is indeed the issue. I didn't know you could just copy files, hence the monumental ballache. So I'm slowly learning that the photos app is just that, an app. Not the default way the mac deals with any image file as I first believed.

That’s literally all I want to do. How do you look at them though?

The simple way is to change your folder view to grid (six little squares at top of an open folder) - and use the slider at the bottom right to enlarge/reduce the preview size.

And if you really don't get on with Photos there are loads of photo viewer apps on the app store which you may prefer.

Thanks

It's looking a little clearer now. I should copy all the files over manually and then let iPhoto do it's thing, if at all.

Abobe Bridge is free too...

https://www.adobe.com/uk/products/bridge.html

...and is a powerful file management tool.

I didn’t know you could just copy files

maybe you need to go back to basics and get (and read!!) a complete beginners' Mac/OSX guide?

<div class="bbp-reply-content">

maybe you need to go back to basics and get (and read!!) a complete beginners’ Mac/OSX guide?

</div>

🤣💯

To be fair, I knew you could copy files. I've spent the last few months installing loads of software etc. I just thought iPhoto was how the Mac dealt with images specifically. Viewing, editing, and indeed importing the bloody things.