Tips

iCloud Photos Backup Guide

• Tips for how to safely back up your iCloud Photos library using rsync to an external drive.
• This type of backup only really makes sense if you have “Download Original to this Mac” enabled, and that can obviously take a VERY LARGE CHUNK of your Mac’s drive!
• Or you can export all your iCloud Photos locally using something like icloudpd, as described below.

Export iCloud Photos Locally

The recommended way is to backup all your original iCloud media using the iCloud Photo Downloader Python utility icloudpd. It downloads all photos from your iCloud account via the CLI. This means all photos as well as all videos (so make sure you have enough hard disk space!):

brew install icloudpd

mkdir icloud-photos
icloudpd -d icloud-photos -u YOUR-ICLOUD-EMAIL-ID@icloud.com

… then follow prompts.

Default Photos Library Location

Alternatively, you can just reference macOS’s default Photos Library, which is located at ~/Pictures/Photos Library.photoslibrary/

This single package contains:

• All original photos and videos (Masters or Originals)
• Albums, Smart Albums, keywords, and metadata
• All edits and Faces data

Important: Do not copy individual subfolders inside the package. Always copy the full .photoslibrary package.

Backup Strategy

Use rsync to copy your library to an External Drive.

Assuming your external backup drive is mounted at /Volumes/bak and contains a Pictures/ subfolder, you can back up the library as follows:

# Close Photos app before running
rsync -avh --perms --delete ~/Pictures/Photos\ Library.photoslibrary/ /Volumes/bak/Pictures/

Explanation of options:

• -a : Archive mode (preserves permissions, symbolic links, timestamps)
• -v : Verbose output
• -h : Human-readable numbers
• --perms : Preserve file permissions
• --delete : Delete files on the destination that no longer exist on the source

This creates an exact copy of your Photos Library in /Volumes/bak/Pictures/.

Restore Strategy

To restore the library:

1. Copy the backed-up library back to ~/Pictures:

rsync -avh --progress /Volumes/bak/Pictures/Photos\ Library.photoslibrary ~/Pictures/

1. Hold Option while opening Photos and select the restored library.
2. Photos will open exactly as it was, with all albums, edits, and metadata intact.