If you want your Mac's photos to wirelessly sync to all your other iOS devices and computers, you want to set up iCloud Photo Library: Apple's photo sync service lets you back up your images on all your devices, as well as access them — online or offline — on said devices. If you're willing to pay for the extra iCloud storage space, you can store an incredible amount of photos and videos, all accessible at the touch of a button or multi-touch screen.

Mar 18, 2020 Get help with the Photos app on your Mac. It's a good idea to create a backup of your photo library, even if you use iCloud Photos. You can use Time Machine, use.

May 26, 2019 Though many people associate iCloud with Apple products such as the iPhone, iPad, and Mac, in this article I’m going to show you how to upload photos to iCloud using (gasp!) a Windows PC. The iCloud Photo Library is a great tool and ranks right up there with OneDrive and Google Drive.
May 22, 2018 In this tutorial Host Matt Troutman shows you how to start syncing your photos up to iCloud Photo Library. Back up your photos by uploading to iCloud.

Here's how to set it up on your Mac and get everything configured to your liking!

How to set up iCloud Photo Library on your Mac

Launch the Photos app on your Mac.
Select the Photos menu in the upper left corner of your screen.
Go to Preferences.
Click on the iCloud tab.
Source: iMore
Check 'iCloud Photos.' This will begin uploading any and all images you have stored in the Photos app to iCloud.
Source: iMore

How to optimize your photo and video storage

Icloud Stuck Uploading Mac

If you routinely shoot 4K video or high-quality images on your iPhone, iPad, or DSLR, you may run out of storage space fast. (I have a 1TB iMac, but also have almost a terabyte of 4K video stored in iCloud — it gets unwieldy, fast!) This is especially true if you have a Mac laptop with limited hard drive space: It's nice to look at your iPhone's gorgeous Portrait mode photos, but not necessarily always practical to store all of them locally.

Thankfully, Apple offers an Optimize Storage option, which lets you store full-resolution photos and videos of only your most recently shot and accessed imagery; all older photos and videos are available to download via iCloud and are stored as low-resolution previews on your device to save space. You can switch between optimizing your Mac's photos storage or storing your full library locally: Here's how!

Note: If you plan on using Optimize Storage, we suggest having at least one device that stores your entire library locally (usually a Mac with a large local or external hard drive), so you have multiple backups of your photographs and video.

Launch the Photos app on your Mac.
Click Photos in the App menu in the upper left corner of your screen.
Select Preferences from the drop-down menu.
Source: iMore
Click the iCloud tab.
Click Optimize Mac Storage.
Source: iMore

Full-resolution versions of your photos and videos will be uploaded to iCloud.

How to share photos with iCloud Photo Library

Apple's photo service doesn't just provide online backups and sync for your images and video: The company also offers a free sharing service that allows you to send shared albums to friends and family (or create a publicly-shared website). Here's how to turn it on for your Mac.

Questions?

Let us know in the comments below.

Updated January 2020: Updated for macOS Catalina. Serenity Caldwell worked on a previous version of this post

iCloud Photo Library: The Ultimate Guide

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