How to view photos on an external drive in Photos app

[BurntNewt]

Is there a way possible to view photos on an external drive in the photos app without them uploading to my iCloud and wasting my storage. I have an old phone with about 11,000 photos and I am putting them on an external drive however I want an easy way to look through them and enjoy them is there anyway to do that in photos or another app that is able to help that way I don't waste my 50 gigs of iCloud.

[Helpful Tech Witch]

Im confused

You have a drive of photos, right?

you want to open them on... windows? macos?

just... opening them doesnt work?

[Electronics Wizardy]

What devices and os is this? 

 

Do you have to use the photos app? There are often better photo manages for mac os that allow better use of multiple drives.

[BurntNewt]

Just now, Helpful Tech Wiard said:

Im confused

You have a drive of photos, right?

you want to open them on... windows? macos?

just... opening them doesnt work?

I want to open them in Mac OS in the photos app, but if I do that it will upload them to iCloud which is the problem, and I prefer the organization of the photos app rather than just looking at them in the finder

[BurntNewt]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

What devices and os is this? 

 

Do you have to use the photos app? There are often better photo manages for mac os that allow better use of multiple drives.

MacBook Pro on Big Sur, but yeah if there's a other photo manager I mean that works too lol just don't want them wasting space on icloud

[Helpful Tech Witch]

Just now, BurntNewt said:

I want to open them in Mac OS in the photos app, but if I do that it will upload them to iCloud which is the problem, and I prefer the organization of the photos app rather than just looking at them in the finder

this should help

https://support.apple.com/guide/photos/change-photos-preferences-pht5156cc968/mac

[BurntNewt]

1 minute ago, Helpful Tech Wiard said:

this should help

https://support.apple.com/guide/photos/change-photos-preferences-pht5156cc968/mac

it would still upload them to the cloud if I selected the folder that they are in, in the external drive though wouldn't it?

[Electronics Wizardy]

2 minutes ago, BurntNewt said:

MacBook Pro on Big Sur, but yeah if there's a other photo manager I mean that works too lol just don't want them wasting space on icloud

Can you just store them in finder? 

 

Darktable is free and works fine.

 

Lightroom is pretty powerful and popular.

 

Create a new library in photos and store it on your external drive?

[Helpful Tech Witch]

Just now, BurntNewt said:

it would still upload them to the cloud if I selected the folder that they are in, in the external drive though wouldn't it?

did you read it?

just disable icoud photos...

[BurntNewt]

4 minutes ago, Helpful Tech Wiard said:

did you read it?

just disable icoud photos...

if I turn that off then it negates having iCloud...

[BurntNewt]

5 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Can you just store them in finder? 

 

Darktable is free and works fine.

 

Lightroom is pretty powerful and popular.

 

Create a new library in photos and store it on your external drive?

how would I go about making the new library or is Lightroom free cause if it is id rather use that 

[Electronics Wizardy]

5 minutes ago, BurntNewt said:

how would I go about making the new library or is Lightroom free cause if it is id rather use that 

There are lots of guides and info out there of how to do this. Basically option click photos and it will give you a option for a new library. Lightroom isn't free

[Helpful Tech Witch]

5 minutes ago, BurntNewt said:

if I turn that off then it negates having iCloud...

no, if you turn that off it wont automatically back up photos when you open them, but it will allow you to manually do it.

and icloud is usuful for more than photos.

I have icloud photos disabled on my iphone because it sucks to have my photos not on my phone, but I can still upload photos to icloud if I want to back them up

[BurntNewt]

45 minutes ago, Helpful Tech Wiard said:

no, if you turn that off it wont automatically back up photos when you open them, but it will allow you to manually do it.

and icloud is usuful for more than photos.

I have icloud photos disabled on my iphone because it sucks to have my photos not on my phone, but I can still upload photos to icloud if I want to back them up

I turned it off an now I none of the photos I upload shows on my Mac and I can't turn it on again...

 

and if I am able to some how turn it all on again im gonna have 3000 duplicates...

[Helpful Tech Witch]

4 minutes ago, BurntNewt said:

I turned it off an now I none of the photos I upload shows on my Mac and I can't turn it on again...

 

and if I am able to some how turn it all on again im gonna have 3000 duplicates...

going to the photos app, preferences, icloud, and reselecting icloud photo library doesnt do it?

if your photos disapred, they wont be duplicated because theyre only on icloud, not on the mac

[BurntNewt]

8 minutes ago, Helpful Tech Wiard said:

going to the photos app, preferences, icloud, and reselecting icloud photo library doesnt do it?

if your photos disapred, they wont be duplicated because theyre only on icloud, not on the mac

I had it so originals downloaded to my Mac, and no I can't do that cause it would run out of storage on my cloud then and id have to delete duplicates to get the storage back. if I go back to reselect it gives me a screen to buy more storage

[Helpful Tech Witch]

6 minutes ago, BurntNewt said:

I had it so originals downloaded to my Mac, and no I can't do that cause it would run out of storage on my cloud then and id have to delete duplicates to get the storage back. if I go back to reselect it gives me a screen to buy more storage

then the photos are still on icloud?

doublen check

delete the downloaded ones and then re enable it