Mac Os Catalina do not sync photos with iOS Devices

Wow. Brilliant. It won't help everyone, but this helped me. I only wanted two folders of photos on my iPhone, the one of our cats and another album of selected photos. So, by moving those albums to sit under 'My Albums' instead of being sub-folders, I was finally able to get the photos I wanted on my iPhone.

Maybe this trick will help some others as well: if you can live with just a few albums on your phone, move them under 'My Albums' and then synch your iPhone through Finder.

Thanks Diego!!!

While syncing photos from macOS Catalina to iOS device you need to take the following into account:

When syncing from the photos app with Finder

1 - Make sure iCloud photos is disabled on the iOS device (it can be enabled on the Mac).

2 - Make sure the photos library is setup as system library.

3 - If you replace libraries on the Mac, setup the new photos library as system library and restart the Mac before attempting to sync or else it will always sync with the previous library (even if that library is deleted from the Mac).

4 - Only photos inside albums or with a specific type (selfies, screenshots, etc) will sync, even if you select "All photos". If the intended photos do no meet these criteria they will not sync (possible bug with 10.15.1). In that case just create a new album on your Mac and add them to it before syncing.

When syncing from a specific folder with Finder

1 - Photos inside folder will appear greyed out, but selecting a specific folder will sync all photos inside that folder.

2 - Folder names will be automatically issued to the album that will be created on your iOS device (e.g. if you sync photos from a folder called "Apple" on your Mac it will create an album called "Apple" on your iOS device).

But the most important is that when performing this type of sync, on your iOS device you will have a new section called "On my Mac" where the synced photos will appear, synced photos will not sync to your iOS albums location. The albums on the "On my Mac" section of your iOS device cannot be deleted directly on that device, instead you need to connect your iOS device to your Mac, manually unselect the desired album and sync once more, thus deleting the selected album from your iOS device.

Hope it helps.

Problem solved for me.

Given that iOS devices have never allowed the use of folders in the Photo app but only albums. And I've always had two collections in the Mac OS Photo app. A well structured one in folders and albums and one with only albums to sync up on iPhone and iPad.

The problem of synchronization with Catalina is completely solved by consolidating the photos. However, I also keep an external copy for any eventuality (and it is easier to manage them when exporting to other computers).

However, remember to have only albums and not folders for photos to be synchronized.

I kept the basic structure with folders and then I created smart albums (which automatically include all the photos I put in the main collection) to sync to iOS devices.

For me this works perfectly, and indeed is more efficient than before.

The only two problems are the double space consumption on HD, but for me it is not a problem (9000 photos per 45 GB) and the hallucinatory slowness of synchronization through Finder

Came up with a temporary workaround.

I have tens of thousands of photos in Photos on my iMac. They are in albums which are within folders -- sometimes in folders within folders.

Until Catalina I was able to pick any albums (whether or not in folders), check them when synching with iTunes and they would show up as planned as albums on my iPhone and iPad. Now, with Catalina, nothing in folders gets synched onto my device.

Workaround: There are about 20 albums I want to get onto my iPad and iPhone. Things like annual albums of the family and albums of special trips we have taken. So this is what I have done. Instead of uselessly trying to check the albums within the folders, I made copies of the albums within the Photos app on my Mac and moved those copies out of the folders. I have grouped them at the top of the "My Albums" in Photos application on the iMac. Then, I synch the iPad/iPhone to the computer and, in the Photos window of the Finder screen check those copied (now duplicate) albums on the computer. Note: must wait for initial synch to complete and then click "Apply."

It is very easy to duplicate an album on the Mac in Photos: Control-click the album and a pull down menu shows up with the option to duplicate. By the way, this takes no disk storage since there is still only on copy of the actual photo on the computer.

Hopefully Apple will soon fix the issue with Catalina and Photos. Until then I can use this workaround.

I had the exact same issue until I found a post from another user. So apparently anybody who has been loyal to Apple long enough will have organized albums in iPhoto under iPhoto Events. The problem with this is newer Mac OS’ recognized these events as folders and iTunes was the only thing allowing the syncing to happen. Now that Catalina is out and iTunes is dead it does not recognize those events because those events were saved as folders in older Mac OS’s.

So what is the solution. You have to turn those folders in iPhoto events into their own albums. So the steps I am about to say are not verbatim but you should get the idea.

Open the Photos App on your Mac and under “My Albums” you will see your “iPhoto Events” and see all your albums. Click iPhoto Events to display your albums to the right. Press Command-A to highlight all the albums. Then right click or double click and you should see in the pop up window a command that states move events and make them into their own albums. Once that is done your iPhoto Events will have nothing in it but under your iPhoto events tab you should see all your albums that were in iPhoto Events. Now you should be able to sync your photos when connecting your iOS devices. Hope this helps.

So to solve the problem you have to open the Photos App on your Mac. Clock on iPhoto Events under My Albums. Press Command-A to highlight all albums. Right click or double click

From other replies in this thread I have used a "successful" workaround for this issue.

The problem is folder structure.

No folder or its contents under My Albums is transferred.

The solution is to move only the album to the top level (root) of My Albums.

In Photos on your Mac,

• move the Album you wish to move to the iPad to the root of My Albums
• syncing within the new Catalina Finder window will then work.

Not ideal (AT ALL) in preserving YEARS of organizing and curating structure and selects, but a solution to at least get several albums onto the device for a temporary project.

What can be done is duplicate the album in its location in your structure, then move the duplicate to the root of My Albums to be deleted later once Apple gets the fix done.

Best for a New Year ya'll.

You don't need to delete your Albums. I have now discovered a different way of doing this so we can get our photos back on our phones as Albums just how they used to be. The photos need to be moved out of Folders and made into Albums on their own. Go into the Folder holding the Album of photos, click on the Album name and drag the photos up and drop them in My Albums. It means that the original photos are just moved to a new position but keep the original name. Sync and you should find that the photos are on your phone just as they used to be. I've done this today and all my photos are showing on my phone just as they used to before Catalina came along. Until Apple get the syncing problem sorted out this appears to be the only way of getting our photo albums on our devices the way we want to. Hope that all makes sense!

Hi

Local sync has also stopped since I upgraded to Catalina. Same problem with both iPhone and iPad. In my case all photos are in albums that are in top level (My albums).

Did call Apple support today. We discovered its related to that photos are not in the Library. I have this option unchecked (add to library when import). Also my photos are on a NAS connected with SMB (AFP tested too).

After collecting photos to Library the sync works again!

Note: A related problem is Places. It does only work with photos in library. Very strange too is that places works via Persons.

To many workarounds for my taste. I hope Apple shape up since this was all working fine in Mojave.

Correct, I am aware of iTunes is now called Music on Catalina (10.15.2). I’m just not used to calling it Music yet. Ok, I’m going to follow your instructions right now, and see if this works....

Wow, I actually got it to work... Sweet! Thanks @Bru55

It’s very simple actually... Just drag the albums you want synced from ‘Photos’ to your iPad or iPhone, out of their folder in ‘Photos’ and put them directly under ‘My Albums’. Screen shot attached shows my 3 albums I dragged from the folder ‘Personal Photo Events’ and put them under “My Albums’: Peppy’s Album; Favorites Album; Instagram Posts & Affirmations

Then just sync and they pop up. FINALLY!!!! Good job @Bru55 👍🏼

On March 24, Apple published a new procedure entitled ‘Resolve issues caused by changing the permissions of items in your home folder’ (see link below). Last week, the Apple support person I have been dealing with contacted me and asked if I would ‘test drive’ this procedure to see if it solves any of the multiple issues I’ve been having with Catalina and the syncing of Photos with my iPads, and syncing my iPods to playlists in Music.

To get to the point: it solved just about everything!

Background: Upgraded to Catalina in December. Had many of the same challenges others are experiencing: only syncs all photos/albums to my iPad Pro (at first, I couldn’t even get Catalina to recognize the iPad); can’t sync a mix of albums; takes forever to sync; very flakey and unreliable syncing of my iPods, etc.

Configuration: late-2015 27” iMac running 10.15.4 syncing via USB cable (no iCloud involved) to a 2017 10.5” iPad Pro running 13.4; 4th generation iPad running iOS 10; iPod Classic and Nano; and iPhone 5s and 6s with latest OS that each will run.

All images are stored in the Photos library. Not dealing with referenced images. This is a critical point, as I earlier moved my almost 15k referenced images into Photos to address an ongoing issue of the links to the referenced images getting severed in Photos. In hindsight, this was also likely a permissions issue.

I have not tried to sync pictures to an iPhone, so I can’t confirm if that problem is fixed. Images download to Photos on my iMac from my iPhones without any problems.

Prior to going through the new permissions procedure, we ran the following on my iMac: Booting into Safe Mode, resetting the NVRAM, and resetting the SMC. Also did a minor clean-up of my album hierarchy in Photos.

Did these preliminary steps help with the fix? Don’t really know, but they did give me about as clean a machine as possible before repairing the permissions.

With this procedure you use Terminal to access the Repair Home app. After repairs are complete you install a new copy of your current OS. This is a direct replacement and does NOT require any, at least for me, resetting of preferences, moving files, etc. Very simple.

With the procedure I went as far as Step 7. Did not need any of the ‘If the issue persists’ steps.

IMPORTANT: Because you are trying to fix issues that involve Photos there are two critical, not documented, steps after Step 7:

Step 8 - Immediately after login to the updated OS, hold down the Command and Option keys and launch Photos. Repair/restore the Photos library. This can take some time and for me it stalled at 99% for 3-4 minutes. It did finish.

Step 9 - Immediately after the Photos library repair is complete, restart your computer.

Now you can test and see if this has solved some or all of the issues you are having.

After this fix I can sync any combination of albums to my iPad Pro. Even my six-year-old iPad running iOS 10 actually syncs, very slowly, however. iPods sync quickly and correctly, although some times the sync doesn’t take on the first attempt and ejecting and reconnecting the iPod is required.

Why did this work, at least for me? In conversation with the Apple support person, he highlighted the critical role permissions play in the working of the Mac OS. Over time permissions get corrupted and/or just do not function as required. At the start of the support article there is a long list of problems caused by permission issues.

I am guessing here, but possibly the major changes Catalina introduced accentuated any underlying permission issues with the Home folder. The new process of syncing Photos and Music with various devices via the Finder was part of the ‘collateral damage’ of such a radical OS change.

My suggestion is that if you are currently working with an Apple support person you first discuss this procedure to confirm it makes sense for your particular situation. And as always, don’t try this unless you have a current backup of your system.

I hope this process addresses some of the multitude of issue out there relating to Catalina and syncing.

Here is the link to the support article. Good luck!

https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT203538

USB sync to both my iPad and iPhone now work. It's taken me awhile to figure it out but here is what is critically important:

1. You must have the SUPPLEMENTAL update to Mac OS 10.15.4 installed on your Mac.
2. Your iOS and/or PadOs version must be updated to 13.4.1
3. You must perform a repair/rebuild of your Mac Photos library.
4. If you have any corrupt photo files in your library, you have to delete those and replace them with photos from your backup.
5. You must have sufficient storage space on your iDevice.

When you perform a USB sync, it is important to know that when the finder has finished the sync process your iDevice has not. It continues to unpack, organize, and store your pics into folders. In my case 14,300 photos took about 45 minutes to complete the unpacking process on my iPhone Xr.

At the end of the day, USB sync is working on my iPad pro and iPhone Xr. It only took Apple 7 months to get here but now it works.

it appears that you can only sync albums if they are in the main album directory. If the album is in a subfolder it refuses to sync.

if you move the album to the main directory albums it will sync

succes

After upgrading to Catalina 10.15 and restoring to a new iPhone 11 Pro with iOS 13.1.3 i had the same problem. My whole pictures folder (with all subfolders) are not be synced anymore. The iPhone sync status in finder also never show an clear status and could mostly only be stopped by unplugging the cable.

I deleted the subfolder 'iPod Photo Chache' which is located as subfolder at your - main to sync folder - on my MacBook Pro. Reconnected the iPhone (via USB cable) and ... after a new run of preparing your pictures for synchronisation (time depends on the size of your picture library), the albums are synced to my iPhone.

Hope that helps you too,

Marcus

You will need to delete the iPod Photo Cache folder for each device , every time you want to sync.

inhave been dealing with this issue for about six months; for me it pre-dates Catalina.

This is my workflow for each device, with every sync:

Uncheck the sync photos option and agree to remove the photos. Apply.

Sync the phone as many times as you like.

Delete iPod Photo Cache folder

Check Synx Photos and verify the source folder. Apply.

Back up the Phone when sync is complete. Do not try to sync again - it just gets stuck.

Repeat the process for the next device.

12K+ photos can take as long as two hours and the ordering is now random in the device.

Hope this helps.

What worked for me is selecting all Photos in the Photos Album -> then go to File -> Consolidate

Seems Photos doesn't sync from the Reference files.

Once consolidated (Originals copy over into Photo Album folder), I then managed to successfully sync my Photos (via Finder) to my iPhone again !!