shai.lottem

Q: Keep faces when restoring from iCloud

Hi there,

 

I'm using Photos 1.3 on El Capitan 10.11.3.

Recently my hard drive died, and I decided to clean install OS X on a new one, and then manually copy files from a Time Machine backup as needed. I chose to start a new Photos library as well, and sync it with iCloud Photo Library. When I did, and waited for all of the photos to sync, I noticed all of the many faces I assigned were not restored from iCloud. I know for sure they were ON iCloud, because I could (and still can) search and find them on my iPhone. They not on my Mac right now.

I still have the old backup from the old hard drive, so I might backup the new library (with new photos and without faces) to a different location, copy the old library (without new photos and with faces) to the new hard drive, assign it to be the system library, and add new photos if necessary.

My question is, have anyone experienced a similar problem, and if so how they dealt with it?

 

Thanks in advance for answering!

Shai

OS X El Capitan (10.11.3), 240 SSD, 2.5 Ghz i5, 8GB RAM

Posted on Mar 8, 2016 3:41 AM

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Q: Keep faces when restoring from iCloud

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  • by léonie,Solvedanswer

    léonie léonie Mar 8, 2016 4:33 AM in response to shai.lottem
    Level 10 (106,831 points)
    iLife
    Mar 8, 2016 4:33 AM in response to shai.lottem

    iCloud Photo Library is storing the searchable Faces tags, but not the thumbnails in the Faces albums, as described in this document:  Use Photos and iCloud Photo Library on multiple Mac computers - Apple Support

    It will be like downloading to a different Mac:

    After you sign in, these items appear in the Photos app on all of your Macs:

    • All original photos and videos
    • All folders and albums
    • Smart Albums
    • Keywords
    • Searchable keywords based on Faces tiles
    • Key photo selections

    These items are available only on the Mac where you created them:

    • Books, cards, and calendars
    • Slideshows
    • Keyword shortcuts
    • Unused keywords
    • Last imported album (this album contains photos you most recently imported on a specific Mac)
    • Faces tiles and Faces data

    You will be able to search for faces, if you restore the library from iCloud as you did,  and Photos will be faster to recreate the faces thumbnails in the faces albums, based on the searchable tags that are already there.

     

    But if you want to save this work restore your library from Time Machine. This will also save your projects (books, cards, calendars) and you unused keywords.

    But if you restore the library, the initial syncing with iCloud will take much longer, because the restored library will upload to iCloud again to be compared to the compared photos already in iCloud.  You may receive a warning, that the iCloud storage will not be sufficient.

  • by shai.lottem,

    shai.lottem shai.lottem Mar 8, 2016 5:38 AM in response to léonie
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Mar 8, 2016 5:38 AM in response to léonie

    Thanks for your answer. Apple should handle this more seriously but for now it's manageable.

  • by léonie,Helpful

    léonie léonie Mar 8, 2016 6:11 AM in response to shai.lottem
    Level 10 (106,831 points)
    iLife
    Mar 8, 2016 6:11 AM in response to shai.lottem

    You may want to send a feature request to Apple, so the developers will know what the users want:  Use this form:

    Apple - Photos - Feedback

     

    I also send this request. It is tiresome to have to label all faces again when I sync the photos to a different Mac.