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I have observed from this question that the above directories are where the 'true' location of the photos lives and is only viewable on macOS. However a critical part of these photos is the metadata showing location and device (which shows it was me and not some random download).

The data seems intractable and Photos Library photos are backed up on iCloud (although not under Finder > iCloud drive, confusingly) and also visible on iPhone anyway.

  1. Can I safely delete this entire package from my Mac, or untick from System Preferences > iCloud > Photos, without disturbing the photos and their metadata in iCloud?
  2. Is it worth backing up (via rsync) onto an external Hard Drive? Or will the backup be missing location/device metadata, or be unreadable on alternative OSs?

NB: in this case I consider the iPhone and iCloud 'long term' but not the macbook

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In brief:

  1. Yes
  2. Yes

In more detail, on your Mac you should uncheck your iCloud photo sync first!!! After that, I’d still delete your photos thru the Photos app, instead of just removing the .library file. But, again, be cautious, delete a junk photo first on the Mac, make sure it’s not deleted in iCloud. Music backups should have all of the metadata. Photo backups will have the data that was in the original photo (usually as EXIF data) like date-captured, location (if you used a phone, or a GPS-enabled camera), camera, lens, etc, but not the extra Photos-app added stuff like Faces and Keywords.

And, yes, if you don’t have local backups (or another cloud, like Amazon or Google Photos), you’re asking for trouble. Rsync is great, it’s how I backup my media (even music) to an external USB drive.

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