I do not assume iCloud will probably be of a lot assist on this case, attributable to storage capability limitations of the cloud. Though protecting a replica of simply your “favorites” picture album there could be a superb use of it – protecting throughout the storage constraints.
Sadly, Pictures simply is not as steady or as performant, or as built-in with iCloud accurately, contemplating how lengthy it has been round and the way a lot Apple likes to delight itself on the “it simply works” mantra. I am not saying you should not use Pictures, simply that it’s best to most likely use it in restricted scope and never depend on it an excessive amount of. Some want Picture Seize in its place for simply copying pictures over out of your cell units. The necessary factor about Pictures is that has a checkbox choice for deleting pictures from their machine of origin as soon as they have been efficiently copied over. Be sure you’re utilizing this, otherwise you will not be liberating up any area for brand new pictures in your supply units (iPhone, iPad, and so on).
That error message is because of reminiscence (RAM), not storage points. It might be brought on by Pictures, or it might be brought on by another app. Additional probing is required. However both means, it sounds such as you’ve acquired issues along with your Pictures library that have to be resolved first.
One factor you are able to do as a substitute of making an attempt to open the corrupt library is navigate to your .photoslibrary file (it is truly a bundle, not a single file) in Finder and Present Bundle Contents. This may can help you entry your precise pictures. They’re contained in subfolders inside. That is one factor the designers of Pictures acquired proper – you possibly can nonetheless entry your pictures as particular person recordsdata.
Subsequent launch Pictures whereas holding down Possibility and when prompted to “Select Library” click on on “Create New…“. Because you talked about not eager to retailer your pictures in your Mac’s inner laborious drive, use an exterior one. Even when your MyPassport drive has the capability for it, I like to recommend utilizing a separate drive for this. Redundancy for the sake of backup is an excellent thought.
Drag recordsdata or folders of your pictures from the subfolders of your .photoslibrary onto the Pictures icon on the Dock. That is much like doing File → Import… from inside Pictures, besides that when choosing recordsdata to Import, you can not see inside a bundle. Dragging from Finder will get round this limitation. I anticipate many elements of the construction of your previous Pictures library is not going to be preserved (similar to favorites, albums, picture edit settings, face knowledge, and so on). However your pictures themselves needs to be salvageable.
Why Pictures libraries get so simply corrupted, I have no idea. There are many elements of the Pictures app that might use enchancment, as I discussed. You may also discover whether or not there are instruments that may “restore” a damaged Pictures library, however use warning. Pulling from the bundle contents and beginning a recent library is the surest wager, for my part.
Lastly, transferring ahead, think about shopping for an extra drive to again up this new library you’ll presumably proceed so as to add pictures to.