84 Macworld • December 2019FEATURE
external drive. Photos now launches with that
emptylibrary.
6.Choose Photos > Preferences > iCloud and
check iCloud Photos if it isn’t already, and
select Download Originals to This Mac. Your full
iCloud Photos library will now download from
iCloud.com, and this may take a long while if
you have a lot of media and not super-speedy
broadband. When complete, you have a full
copyontheexternaldrive.
7.Logoutofthephotos-orientedaccount.
8.In your main account, if you haven’t already,
launch Photos and in Photos > Preferences
> iCloud, make sure that Optimize Mac
Storage is selected.Now, whenever you want to ensure you have a
full backup of your iCloud Photos library, attach
the external drive, log into the second account,
and iCloud will download and update any media
that isn’t already present. This still requires some
monkeying around, but it’s the closest thing to an
easy way to ensure a local backup of iCloud Photos
without working against how Apple designed its
iCloud Photos synchronization.Can’t select a drive to use with Time
Machine? It might need reformatting
You have the option with iTunes to add music and
other audio files to its library in one of two ways: you
can use the default method of copying all files into
the iTunes Media folder, or you can opt to add by