Q: If I use my ICLOUD to upload my photos does my family sharing automatically allow everyone in the family to see them.

No, your family can only see the photos that you manually add to your shared family album which family sharing has created for this purpose.

Why is it called Family Sharing if we can't share our family photos. The workaround is really lame and my wife keeps pressuring me to move our 600GB of family photos to another platform.

Photo Sharing - iCloud

Eric, thanks - I know about that. That is the lame hack I was referring to. And, currently it's not working consistently for me.

If it doesn't get any better in Sierra, I'm probably going to move to another photo platform and give someone else my $10 per month.

Ok...

Family Sharing refers to a suite of features, one of which is a shared Photo Album.

If you feel you want all of your photos shared to your family without a second glance, then  Family Sharing may not be the product for you.

You may consider using a Public Album, which creates a website that anyone with the URL can access. You update this through your Photos app and it is updated in real time.

Not sure how you see this as a hack. If you think you are effectively threatening anyone here, you are mistaken. None of us work for Apple and will be completely unaffected if you walk.

What is the shared Photo Album? Are you referring the act of creating a photo album that is shared through iCloud Photo Sharing?

If so, that's what I'm referring to as the hack. Not in the threatening sense, but as a work-around to missing functionality.

A few years ago our family shared a single Apple ID. Then Apple started linking text messages and phone calls to the Apple ID and suggested that we all get our own, so our kids wouldn't get the same messages as the adults. And so, Apple gave us Family Sharing so we could still purchase a single copy of an app for the family. Unfortunately, that also affected the iCloud Photo Library, so that we all got our own personal iCloud (5GB for free -- whoopee!) and we no longer contributed to the same library of photos.

So now, we have to share albums through iCloud Photo Sharing. And, if we're all on vacation and each taking our own photos, I have to bug everyone to contribute the the shared album created for that trip. They can't just automatically add their photos to the 1TB iCloud drive. It doesn't "just work" any more. It takes work.  And, consequently, we sometimes can't find a photo because it's on one of our phones and takes work to track it down.

Unfortunately, I'm deeply invested in Apple with lots of Apple hardware throughout the house. But my wife is constantly complaining about it. I bought our first iMac 12 years ago to simplify the process of pulling photos off of cameras and managing the digital photo library. Now, 6 Macs, 2 iPads, 4 iPhones and an Apple Watch later, it's become a real pain.

Winston, several weeks ago, referred to Family Sharing's Family Photo Album. This how a family, with unique Apple IDs can share their photos with each other.

You called it a workaround without even understanding what you are referring to.

You jumped to the conclusion there was no way to share photos to your family.

"Why is it called Family Sharing if we can't share our family photos. The workaround is really lame and my wife keeps pressuring me to move our 600GB of family photos to another platform."

There is no hack required and no missing functionality. The designed functionality is what you're seeing. Each member has their own photo library and must manually share their photos with others.

Family Sharing is not missing a function, it simply doesn't have the function you want. Two very different scenarios.

The 1 TB Cloud drive is not, and never has been, shareable. Again, working as designed but not what you need or want. So be it.

You can provide feedback to Apple here >>> http://www.apple.com/feedback/icloud.html

I never said we couldn't share photos. But it is no longer automatic. iCloud photos evolved into something that requires a lot more management. And as a result, my wife and I sometimes take the exact same photo because both phones don't automatically contribute to the same library like they once did. So, we end up with a lot of very similar photos, too.

Apple has always been very good at simplifying life, not adding complexity.

I originally came to the forum to solve another problem. I didn't find the answer to that, instead deleting and recreating a bunch of these shared photo albums that weren't syncing or sharing. But I saw this and responded, hoping someone found some new method of making it simple again, that I hadn't discovered elsewhere.

Photo Sharing outside of the same Apple ID has never been automatic.

And not to split hairs, but you did say that...

Your needs are reasonable. They just aren't met by Family Sharing.

Making it simple as you wish would make it less private.

I don't think you have thought through your suggestion.

I and my wife share many photos but we certainly wouldn't want to share them all automatically.

I very much doubt my wife wants to share the 200 or so photos I'll be taking of windows, doors, drainpipes and roofs etc when I do my property survey this afternoon. I also don't want to share the photo of her undergarments she takes to save taking notes to ensure she gets the same ones at the hypermarket. And I definitely don't want those she took at the Gary Barlow concert last week.

Winston - you're right. I just wish there was a "Family Library" option in Photos as part of Family Sharing, so everyone in my family could share photos directly into it without the need to create a shared library, that I then have to copy photos out of if I want to keep them in a local copy that get's backed up. That would make it easier. And I have mentioned this to Apple directly and via the feedback form. We'll see what we get in September...

There is a Family album which gets automatically created when Family sharing is enabled, however it's contents aren't automatically imported into your library, although it may be possible to create a script do that.

I still see a couple of problems with the idea though. Firstly, it's a shared album so content may not be at it's original resolution, which you may not want in your library. I guess they could make a special shared album that kept everything at full resolution, but this may well be a real issue for people with a lower capacity phone whose family post a couple of 20 minute 3 GB videos.

And secondly, those Gary Barlow videos that I don't want in my library, my son may well do (actually he doesn't want them either but for the sake of example let's suppose he does), if content was automatically imported from a Family album how would both mine and my sons requirements be met.