Q: Shared albums won't show up on new Photos on Mac

I closed Photos, then I held down ⌥ and ⌘ while launching Photos - this started the rebuild process and then my shared streams showed up again.

Rebuilding did not fix my issue.  However, I created an account on the same iMac for my fiancé and her shared photos are showing with no problem.  I want to recreate my account now but I need to save all of my data on an external hard drive before I attempt it.  

rebuilt did not help me as well.

Interesting thing is that I created another user account on the same iMac, and logged into Photos with the same iCloud account, and everything was synced and displayed.

However, once I go back to the original user account, regardless of how many times I logged out of iCloud and log back in, the shared photos refuse to display.

I have even deleted the photos library and recreate a new one, and still it does not work.

Coincidentally, my 500GB HDD died (its been in my 2009 iMac since day 1)

Got a new HDD, rebuilt the Fusion drive.

Reinstalled OS X, reinstate back using Time Machine, and still it is not working!

Finally, I reinstalled OS X fresh, created all the accounts again.

This time round, I pulled data from Time Machine from each user account manually to the new accounts.

And the darn Shared photos finally appeared.

I hope no one has to go through the ordeal as I did...

I have the same problem. Rebuilding doesn't work. Nor does turning on and off iCloud sharing and rebooting. This is on a new iMac with SSD on which the system photo library was created fresh by downloading from iCloud. everything works except Shared Albums do not appear and new ones can't be created.

I give up! 

I tried all the previous suggestions and last night I reinstalled OS X and use Time Machine to pull data.  Now my wife is mad at me because her account is doing the same on the iMac. It was working prior to this last attempt. 

Hi El Siete,

Since you are already at the reinstall stage, DO NOT use restore with Time Machine function. I realise too that when restoring via Time Machine method, the problem of shared photos not appearing is being carried over.

Create your accounts manually, and then access the Time Machine as a shared drive, and retrieve data folder by folder.

The photos has be left to resent itself instead of bringing the photo library over from Time machine.

Its a pain, I agree.

It took me a good 4 days to complete syncing just my photo library, and then another 5 days for my wife's.

To make life easier, settle the wife's account first... :-P

Guys,

If you are still facing this issue after rebuilding, try this:

1. Close Photos
2. Go to System Preferences, iCloud, Photos and disable “My photo Stream” and “iCloud Photo Sharing”
3. Go to folder /Users/YourUser/Library/Containers/com.apple.cloudphotosd/Data/Library/Applicat ion Support/com.apple.cloudphotosd/services
4. Delete com.apple.photo.icloud.myphotostream and com.apple.photo.icloud.sharedstreams folders
5. Enable “My photo Stream” and “iCloud Photo Sharing” again.
6. Start Photos. After a while, the shared photos will start coming.

THANK YOU! I had the same problems as everyone else - and these instructions fixed my problem in less than 5 minutes.

Hang Yong,

Thanks!  I was able to fix my wife stream by deleting her account and reinstalling OS X.  Those last instructions you sent help fix mine.  

mwbaker210,  hope those instructions help your account. 

Bingo! Solved my problem.

Thanks. This solution restore the option to share with third parties.

How do I get to that folder? I copied and pasted it but my computers says that folder cannot be found.

Thank you Hang Yong

This also seems to have fixed my iCloud Photos sync issue. My library had been stuck in the "updating" state for a few weeks now. Following these steps not only fixed my issues with the "Shared" folder being missing (and an inability to share any photos to established iCloud Photo Streams), but my library also has actually started to sync with iCloud Photos again! Thanks so much!!