So recently I decided it would be a good idea to make a backup of my photos from iCloud. I have a NAS at home like most nerd people and not that much room left on my laptop, so why not put a copy on the NAS. Simple yes?

Turns out it’s not so straight forward. When I tried to use a NAS share being NFS, CIFS or AFP, the Apple Photos app wouldn’t allow me to select the photoslibrary location as the System Photo Library or to turn on the iCloud photo library option under iCloud.

This meant I wasn’t able to create a local copy for backup purposes or even clear off some space off my iCloud so I wouldn’t need to upgrade my plan.

The solution was to open Disk Utility, make read/write DMG and store it on my NAS.
Mount that newly created empty DMG
Move the existing photoslibrary file into the new mounted DMG
Open Photos again and select the library inside the DMG.

I could then enable those 2 options!

It’s currently syncing so i’ll need to leave it over night but I think by morning it’ll all be done!

Will update this post with my findings