Reply To: Exporting Apple Library-Optimized

[Adam Pratt]

1. If the Photos library is not optimized and you can access the computer locally then copying will definitely be faster. However, I find that most clients have an optimized Photos library, many aren’t comfortable with in-person meetings in light of health concerns, and some are remote clients. For any of those reasons, syncing from iCloud is a great, albeit slow, solution.
2. I would recommend that clients not optimize their library on their phone and computer, but most of my clients have more photos than local storage. Your mileage may vary.
3. The time it takes to sync depends on many variables including internet speed, connection type (ethernet is generally better than wifi), number of files, size of files, and how many are not stored locally. In my experience this sync process often takes hours or days and I would never attempt to do it live with a client. I start it with the client, but I never expect it to finish.