I only want to use the Shared Library feature of Photos. Don't want my large Photo Library to sync with iCloud

One option you could explore would be to maintain two separate Photos libraries on your Mac. One would be your previous large Photos library not connected with your iCloud Photos Library. The other would be a new smaller Photos library connected to iCloud Photos Library and the Shared Library. The second library could even be created under a separate Mac user if you are more comfortable with user switching than with library switching.

Would you be wanting to create a new Shared Library, or has another family member already created one and invited you to use it?

Hey there Harisazizpracti,

Thanks for reaching out to the Apple Support Communities. To get started, we do want to make you aware that to use iCloud Shared Photo Library, it would require you to have iCloud Photos enabled on your iMac. This information can be found in the following resource under the "Create a Shared Library" section: How to use iCloud Shared Photo Library - Apple Support

To set up a Shared Library, you need a device with iOS 16.1, iPadOS 16.1, or macOS Ventura or later with iCloud Photos turned on.

When you add content to an iCloud Shared Photo Library, that photo or video is taken from your personal iCloud library and moved into the shared bibrary.

We hope that's able to help.

Have a great day!

Hi Harisazizpracti,

Thank you for participating in the Apple Support Communities. To answer your question, once you set up iCloud Photos, this will automatically place your photos into iCloud. The only way to prevent this would be to turn this feature off. If you would like to leave feedback for Apple on this, here is where you can do so: Product Feedback - Apple

Have a great day.

You can share selected photos to the Shared Library from your personal iCloud Photos Library. The problem is, that all photos from the personal iCloud Photos Library will be stored in iCloud Photos. There is no way around this - iCloud Photos is all or nothing. So you have to keep the personal iCloud Photos Library small, where you are storing the photos that will be shared to your Shared iCloud Photos Library. Keep all other photos in additional archive libraries. Only one library can be syncing with iCloud Photos at a time. The person, who is setting up the shared Library will have to pay for the cloud storage. Invite only people to your shared library, who can be trusted to share only a few, selected photos and not to be flooding your shared library with thousands of boring and redundant photos and videos.

I am sharing my Shared iCloud Photos Library only with myself. It is great way to have my most important photos in two different iCloud Photos Library. I have a larger iCloud Photos Library, an archive of many photos and videos, syncing with my Media and Purchases Apple ID on all my Macs, and a smaller iCloud Photos Library syncing with my iCloud Apple ID, used on my iPad and iPhone.

To create additional libraries, see: Create additional photo libraries in Photos on Mac – Apple Support (UK)