Huge photo library: how to best reduce iCloud and local space

[rjalex]

Wife has a 90GB photos library on her Macbook, her iPhone and on iCloud.

Former is running out of space on its local SSD, and also her phone storage is burdened unnecessarily.

I have almost convinced her to keep only photos from 2020 onwards online and move the previous older pics and videos to external backup storage (we have both external USB SSD kept at my office and a RAID NAS at home for that).

Can anyone please point me to the correct procedure to do this without risking a divorce?

Thanks a lot.

PS Funny and tragic story. I live in Italy where 90% of males are avid soccer fans. Some years ago, in the glorious VHS era, a recently married friend of mine had to attend dinner at friends along with his wife and 3 months old baby. Just before exiting he remembered he hadn't put on the VCR to record his favourite team's match which they were dining out. "Just a sec honey, I'll just pop in a tape to record and I'll be joining you in the car". Does so. When they come back home he drops on the couch, rewinds the tape and relaxes watching the match, until ... "Hun, where's our marriage VHS tape? Can't find it. Not where it usually is. Eject follows. Tape label read. Panic. Long and very painful conversation. Well, I don't want to end up like them

 

[AlixSPQR]

My library is 134 GB but my iPhone only has 128 GB. So, obviously, I have chosen to optimise storage. iCloud is 2 TB and my Mac mini has a 500 GB SSD. Everything works fine and I have access to all my photos and videos, which is important to me. So, if I were your wife, I would upgrade the SSD, if possible.

 

[rjalex]

Thanks for your insight. Talking about her Macbook internal SSD which I would not expand. Also would dearly stay under 200GB iCloud tier, so would prefer a way of offloading older stuff to long term storage.

 

[AlixSPQR]

The story after your PS indiciates that you want to do the best thing for your wife, and my best guess for doing so is to give her room enough so she can carry on with, and expand, her current library. Any other solution is much more convenient for you than her, I dare say.