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kb1858's avatar
kb1858
New member | Level 2
7 years ago

Uploading albums from Apple Photos to Dropbox for Back up

Hi   I am trying to sort out cloud storage for my photos.  They are on Apple Photos on a Mac running Sierra 10.12.6.  I already have an external harddrive on which they are regularly backed up.  ...
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  • Jay's avatar
    Jay
    7 years ago
    Hi Kate, most likely this won’t work since the Photos app is a database of its own (hence why we don’t recommend syncing it to Dropbox).
     
    However, in Photos, you should be able to export the album, or the photos out of that app into the Dropbox folder. This will copy the photos, not just move them, so you will be duplicating the space used on your Mac the more photos you copy over.
     
    Hope this clarifies matters!
Jay's avatar
Jay
Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
7 years ago
Hi Kate, most likely this won’t work since the Photos app is a database of its own (hence why we don’t recommend syncing it to Dropbox).
 
However, in Photos, you should be able to export the album, or the photos out of that app into the Dropbox folder. This will copy the photos, not just move them, so you will be duplicating the space used on your Mac the more photos you copy over.
 
Hope this clarifies matters!
  • kb1858's avatar
    kb1858
    New member | Level 2
    7 years ago

    Thanks Jay that's helpful.  I guess I just need to drag and drop them all back and start again....

    Thanks!

    Kate

  • Snappy23's avatar
    Snappy23
    Explorer | Level 4
    5 years ago

    Photos Takeout, an app on the Mac app store, does exactly this. It can export album-wise, year-wise or moment/date-wise folders from Photos on Mac to Dropbox, other cloud services, Mac or external HD. I use it on Big Sur, but it works on older macOSs too. It can also export incrementally i.e. photos added and edited since the last export.

    If this works for you, please mark this as the correct answer so that it can also help others.

     

    PS: You can also export one album at a time with Photos app by selecting all photos in the album, then clicking File / Export in the top menu (Don't use Drag & drop because it'll export JPG versions and exclude some of the metadata).

    • kb1858's avatar
      kb1858
      New member | Level 2
      5 years ago

      Thanks Snappy that's helpful.  I'll take a look.  The dropbox solution took up too much local disk space so I went with Apple photos and several external harddrive backups in the end.

       

       

  • joybliss's avatar
    joybliss
    New member | Level 2
    4 years ago

    Yes, I am doing the same trying to send albums to other users.  Transferring to other users that are PC, metadata isn't transferring with the picture?  Not sure if it transfers to Mac users, haven't tested.  Pulling my hair out on this metadata/Mac problem.  Don't want to spend hours on my 1000's of pictures tagging, adjusting times, locations, titles (many are old scanned pictures).  Any help or direction appreciated.   Joyce

    • Snappy23's avatar
      Snappy23
      Explorer | Level 4
      4 years ago

      joyblissSee my tip above, I had posted it last year but just updated it. As for your scanned photos, if you have added titles, dates, descriptions, keywords and locations using Photos or another metadata editor program, this app exports them. But I noticed that for videos, it doesn't export keywords.

      • joybliss's avatar
        joybliss
        New member | Level 2
        4 years ago

        thanks for the quick reply - I'll give it a try!

         

  • JAFDMD's avatar
    JAFDMD
    New member | Level 2
    12 months ago

    Hello,

     

    I want to transfer all my photos in Apple photos app to Dropbox.  (I realize that the album format present in the app unfortunately cannot not be duplicated in the folder I have created in Dropbox for the transfer)  Is it better to export the photos via the export function in apple Photos app or to use the upload feature in Dropbox?  Is there any difference in the quality of the photo that ends up in Dropbox?  Thanks in advance for your reply.

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