If one is careless, Photos can end up taking up hundreds of gigabytes on your Mac. And that's even if they're synced with iCloud and have space optimization options enabled. This is caused by macOS's poor space management, but luckily there is a solution.
Therefore, if you want to reduce the size of the “Photos” application on your Mac, you will be interested to know how to reduce it to practically zero. And all that without having to delete photos or videossince they will continue to be stored in iCloud and you can access them from iPhone, iPad and other devices.
Theory on How macOS Optimizes iCloud Photo Space
To better understand what is happening, it is worth explaining how iCloud synchronization with the Mac works. If we have activated the synchronization of the “Photos” application with iCloud, on the computer we can see all our photos and videos whenever we want, including. the same content we have on the iPhone.
This content is stored in the cloud, but to view it in full resolution it must be downloaded to the Mac. This is a process that happens in the background for the most recent or favorite content. If we want to see something older, when we open the image or video we can see a loading circle in one of the corners indicating that it is downloading.
Apple's idea is that, even if these photos are in the cloud, There is always content already downloaded and accessible on Mac to view it even without an Internet connection. By not filling the internal space, the system is able to optimize this space according to our needs.
That is, if, for example, we have 30 GB of photos and videos downloaded and we want to import a file that weighs 20 GB, macOS eliminates part of this content from “Photos”. It doesn't delete it completely, but it remains in iCloud. What it does is remove it from the Mac's memory to make room for the new files that we are going to import.
There is, however, a problem: space is not always optimized as it should be. So if we enter System Settings > General > Storage We can see that “Photos” is taking longer than necessary. This is where its complete reduction comes into play, although we have already warned you that this requires a sacrifice.
How to reduce “Photos” space on macOS
In order to let 'Photos' space on Mac close to 0 GB, you will need to remove iCloud sync. The ideal would be to have an option with which you can directly choose the photos and videos you want to keep and even set a maximum limit of space to occupy. However, no such option exists.
When removing sync you will lose access to the photos and videos you save on the iPhone. You can keep a few that you've already downloaded or import them via other means such as AirDrop, but there's nothing that says this is automatic.
Knowing this, the steps to follow are as follows:
- Open System Settings on Mac.
- Click on your photo.
- Enter the section iCloud.
- Now click on Pictures.
- Disable tab Sync this Mac.
- Tap “Delete from Mac” when wondering what to do with downloaded content.
The desynchronization process may take a few minutes. Likewise, once finished, it is possible that many GB are still occupied by “Photos”. You must therefore Go to the app and delete all content to free up your space complete. In this case, don't worry, because if the photos were in iCloud, you will be able to continue viewing them on other devices, on the iCloud site and even on this same Mac if at some point you activate synchronization again .
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