[sho]

> It requires to have a full copy locally.

yeah that's the thing. When my iPhotos library exceeded 1TB I lost the ability to store the full local copies. Since then, iCloud itself has been the sole source.

Looks like there's some decent, reasonably priced apps to handle this like https://apps.apple.com/us/app/parachute-backup/id6748614170?... (no affiliation)

[leoxiong]

You can request an archive of all your data (including photos and drive) in 25gb chunks.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/102208

[mikepurvis]

I recently rebuilt my home server as an unraid machine. Currently it’s mainly torrents and a Minecraft server but it’s got 10tb of locally redundant storage with a sightline to scale that to around 24tb, so it would be a logical place to store a full gphotos copy.

[mh-]

Thanks, I have the same problem and need to do something about it.

I wonder if it can calculate (estimate) how big of an external disk I'll need. My wife and I each have 40-50k photos and a few thousand videos in iCloud Photos.

[b112]

If you want to truly save your photos, make backups of the locals and put it in your safe deposit box at the bank. Or alternatively, at a trusted friend/relative's house.

Even doing this yearly can save the immense sadness of lost memories. And of course, this works for emails, and everything else.

If you encrypt it, make sure you use a method not tied to any external service, or the machine you're on. I don't use Apple, yet I suspect that an encrypted external backup might be tied to your Apple ID, or some such, because that's how the world flies today.

[beala]

On my iPhone, I can see the size of my iCloud photo backups. Settings -> Apple Account -> iCloud -> Storage.

Weirdly, that number is different than Immich’s estimate of my photo library (95 GB vs 150 GB), but perhaps good enough to get you in the ballpark.

[Timshel]

10TB external harddrives are relatively affordable.