If you have a huge Aperture library — over 1TB — then as you can see from the plans below, you can't put more than 1TB into iCloud.

Apple’s iCloud Storage Plans go up to 1TB

That may well change in the future, but for now, that's where we're at. When calculating your library size, it's important to know that if you currently run a referenced Aperture library, the library size doesn't tell the entire story — you have to include your originals. In my case, that'd be somewhere around 4TB, so clearly there's no way I can put the entire thing in iCloud.

Apple does have a support article on how to deal with this, but it basically boils down to three choices… delete photos, start a new library for iCloud, or split your library using Aperture and choose which one you want to be on iCloud.

The Apple article is here: support.apple.com/HT204410

So what am I going to do? My plan is to move my personal/family photos into Photos and use iCloud for that. If I'm thinking this through properly, I'll be able to put my wife's iPhone and Mac on the same account so we'll all have access to the same photos, and then my client work will all live in another app.

I was originally planning to do some big clean-up on my Aperture personal photos library, but I think we all know how that sort of “plan” goes. So instead I'm considering just exporting my entire personal folder from Aperture to a new library, and migrating that to Photos. I sure hope it's under 1TB…