I have been approached by a friend who has in round figures 50,000 images that are currently in Apple’s iCloud system. Friend is up against the iCloud maximum limit - 12 TB. She is ready to start downloading images for storage on external drives. This act itself creates a need for duplicate/backup storage to protect against damage/loss/failure of the external drive(s).
Currently there is no organization and maybe no names beyond the automatically created file name from devices. No idea of Meta data has been used except to display by image file date.
I am thinking if these images don’t get some organization my friend’s idea friends and family will not will not wade through and get some things these people would like.
The main way I organize my images are by date taken with tags & files names. Within Apple’s iCloud system, I have a few folders.
Those of you who have large image collections undoubtedly have tried organizational methods with both success and some disappointment. Thoughts & ideas will be appreciated.
Well, maybe it’s a matter of pre-staging, so that’s sort of what I’ve done over the years, ago on a trip, an event, those pics go into a new folder titled “event mmddyy”, but sometimes just the event… Then I do any post-processing in photoshop or whatever is handy… Then off they go to the Pictures Folder on my Mac…
Then came Photos, I spent a lot of time importing most, not all, of the photos into Photos, sorting Faces by family groups, and along came Apple and updated Photos! Lost all the sorted efforts as far as Faces… But I spent some time, semi-shuffle/sorted Faces again, but those Folders are now Albums, so I can get close to finding most things…
But there are 72,800+ images in that overall library, stored in iCloud, so accessible from iPhone of desktop, but my new pics have slowed, as has my post-processing… And I’ve added Albums for various topics. projects that may not match the original folders, such as work related, local history relate, tools, whatever may be handy…
But I know it’s all subject to Apple shuffling the deck if a new Photos is released… I also have several old iPhoto Libraries I have not yet added to the Photos Library, so likely a lot more I could add…
So no easy, simple solution, no way to sort if not titled, by date may help, but some, like scanned images don’t have the correct date, so in Photos, those can be corrected, but again a tedious project… And then there are videos… Intentional or ‘live’ photos… another headache…
Not an easy project, even if they are your own images…
I may have people confused, but do you have drives with copies of you images locall? If yes what kind of drives? (SSD, Spinners, network attached storage, etc.)
I have a small library by your standards – 3,000 images. I really like the Photos system. I also used iPhotos and held off for a year at converting to Photos. I gave in because I knew Apple would never undo that change. Today I really don’t remember why I resisted - I almost think I was just a stubborn ole fool. Maybe I am just an ole fool with a failing memory.
Ahh, made me look! I show the Library as 154.08 Gb… Had to Google how to find that size used for photos…
Yes, besides Time machine, I’ve an external 4 drive case from OWC, in there are one SSD and 2 spinners all as clones, with the 4th slot as my Time machine drive, all are 2 Tb drives. so maybe half used… Carbon Copy Cloner is set up to clone all three drives whenever I do the run, lately, nightly if there has been updates, changes, MacUpdater has been useful to update apps onboard my desktop, others are done as I get notified, like Office 365, or any that are from the App Store, or OS updates, etc… So, yes, many backups, the SSD generally completes in less than a minute now, spinners vary, 10 minutes or less… I just had to replace one SATA drive, failed the CCC clone, so it’s out and handy that the SATA drives are hot swappable. so simple rolled out the old, in with the new, initialize, format, rename, done… I lost the key to the enclosure, so had to force the lock, don’t really need it, just around some corner of my desk drawer I supplose…
Yes, I resisted leaving iPhoto, it, by creating multi-le Libraries was a simpler system…
So my iCloud is bumped up to 200 Gb iCloud+ so my doorbell camera can use it, (doesn’t count against storage space). I show 47 Gb free, if I dumped everything in there I’d likely have to move up a notch, but the 2 Gb is only $2.99 a month, well worth it for the Home/camera use, as well as yet another backup space off-site…
Likely a lot more imagery than I really need, but I tend to document projects, family, trips, whatever comes along… Mainly now my Nikon is getting dusty as the iPhone 25 Pro Max is just handier, don’t have to download, mess about with much, most done in Photos or Preview, but I do have Photoshop Elements, or even the Nikon apps of needed… Photos, I bought the book, was still a learning process, it’s not as flexible as I’d like, sorting limited, so we’ll see what the next generation does, maybe more AI available… Could be interesting, or rough on us old timers…
I’ve carried my Nikons and various lenses on many trips, recorded family events, for years, since the DSLRs came along, D70, D90, D1200… A lot of lenses as well, collected over the years, but as time marched on, the handiest camera is the one in your hand, and it ends up being the iPhone… And it’s more capable in other ways, video, panoramas, and now decent reach, and onboard coping, editing, hence the dusty Nikons… Changing times…