iCloud Photo Library stores all of your images and videos online but what if you also want additional backup?
The old saying, when it comes to backups, is one place is no place. With something as precious as your photo and video collection, you want to make sure you don't just have a backup to iCloud Photo Library, but a backup of the backup. "One local, one cloud" is the minimum. "Two local, two cloud" is the recommendation. Luckily, Photos for OS X lets you keep a copy of all your originals, all on your Mac. If you have at least one good-sized hard drive, that makes "one local, one cloud" easy. If you're already backing up that Mac as well, then it makes "two local, two cloud" take care of itself as well.
Note: Since you really do need sufficient drive space to store all your photos or videos, a desktop Mac with a big hard drive is best, or a laptop or desktop with a big external drive that hosts your local Photos library. Before proceeding, make sure you have enough storage to fit your needs.
How to download all your original iCloud Photo Library content to your Mac
- Launch Photos for OS X on your Mac
- Go to the Photos > Preferences menu (or type Command + ,)
- Click on the iCloud tab
- Click on Download Originals to this Mac

Once all your photos and videos have finished downloading to your Mac, you'll have a primary local backup.
How to make a local backup of your iCloud Photo Library
If you want a secondary (or even tertiary) local backup, since your complete library is now on your Mac, all you have to do is make sure you're backing up your Mac and your library will be backed up along with it.
- How to backup your Mac using Time Machine
- How to backup your Mac using SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner
How to make an online backup of your iCloud Photo Library
Likewise, if you want additional online backups, all you have to do is make sure you're backing up your Mac online.
Reader comments
How to back up your iCloud Photo Library
Hey Rene,
If you have all of the originals downloaded to your mac and you delete items from iCloud photo library will the originals stay on your mac or will they still be deleted? For instance say I have a billion videos of my daughter and I'm reaching the limits of my storage plan, can I delete them out of iCloud but keep them on my mac?
Thanks,
Mark
Well, you can try this way to download photos from iCloud.
http://www.recovery-tool.com/ios-recovery/download-photos-from-icloud.html
If you deleted from photo library, your videos will be deleted on iCloud. If you want to save them, I suggest you use some other software like FonePaw iPhone Data Recovery or Dr.Fone, this kind of software can download your files from iCloud to your PC. You can watch the tutorial about how to download photos from iCloud on Google. It might help.
How do you save to an external Hard Drive? Or a secondary Hard Drive?
I think I do know the question to this one. Drag the Photos Library from the photos folder in your home library to your desired location. Then when you open up Photos hold down option and it will give you an option to select a library. Navigate to the Library you moved and then open it and it should hopefully default to that library when you open the app in the future. I haven't fully gotten to that step yet :)
good luck!
Mark