Mac Os Catalina do not sync photos with iOS Devices

Mine is 10:15:2, well spotted, I thought it updated but it didn't, I'll do that now :). This means it must be the iOS 13.3.1 in the phone that is the one that does it!

I did get rid of my old "events from my Mac" 1st, more of an accident with the messed up failed sync attempts. But it does seem to help make sure you have a clean new Albums, folders & would you believe sub folders on the device! Otherwise I think it misses items that are stored there, it was different on my iPad. Checked the phone again to be sure & it really worked!

Hope this helps

I noticed something weird like that on the iPad sync, the only difference was that the old iPhotos events were still there. I also had more limited space, but I think the iPhotos events under 'from my mac', is the culprit. I'm getting rid of that now.

The iPhone wasn't working before but is now fine. On the phone I go iPhotos - albums at the bottom menu, then scroll to from my mac - then the blue see all & all there nothing missing.

Trying to think what else I changed to help those struggling, let me know if it does or doesn't work. I know how frustrating this is!

Ipad synced perfectly with iPhotos too,...that is after deleting the old iPhoto events with a manual limited sync. I noticed the numbers were off on the menu ions for the folders, it said I had 1 photo for example in the folder, but when I opened it they were all there.

Seems we are close, I hope something here helps.

I don’t think there is an expected bug fix. Nobody has really received a clear answer on this. Many on this list have contacted Apple. Unless we can somehow get the entire Apple community to start talking about this and complaining, somehow affect their sales, nothing is planned. Apple wants us all to upgrade to iCloud storage and put our photos there. I’m drawing the line on this and will find a different service, Google, Flickr, Lightroom, moving forward. Apple has disappointed me too many times with their changes, killing of products, lack of bug fixes, etc. How can this small group make this a cause that goes viral and makes this affect Apple sales? Every week Apples stock goes higher and higher. They don’t care about this small group complaining. I sold my Apple stock out of spite, but I’m one person.

That would work with little to no issue at all I suspect. You images from your Photos App should be fine, but you will definitely lose your Folder/File structure.

For me, that was a breaking point, meaning, I have spent years building my library, so to do it all again with Apple was too daunting.

I have moved over to a Synology solution, synology.com. So I have a small server at home, all of my images are on a Synology box on my home network and I use Synology's app called PhotoStation for my images now. Yes I had to rebuild it, but it has a bunch of additional features that Photos does not.

I understand that not everyone can go thru the expense & trouble of additional hardware, but I am just tossing it out there as an idea.

For the foreseeable future I have abandoned Apples PhotosApp, which is kinda fitting since Apple abandoned its users by not testing out some of their most important software.

I hope that helps.

Using Catalina 10.15.3 and iOS 13.3.1 on phone and iPad, I can get photos to sync on iMac, iPad and iPhone and also any edits to older photos are reflected on all these devices, using iCloud.

The problem comes when I connect phone or iPad to Mac via cable, photos does NOT recognise that photos already on these devices have been already imported into photos library and wants to import them all AGAIN...all 17000 odd. I make sure I do not do this...😇

My issue is with these photos being placed into albums and also albums into folders.

These will sync BUT not in the alphabetical order I have them sorted in on my Mac.

If I add a new album it is put in some random position on phone, iPad and iCloud.

If I make changes to photos within an Album the same thing happens...the album is put somewhere seemingly in a random position and NOT as I have them on Mac alphabetically.

I have spent countless hours with Apple consultant, sent off loads of screen shots, logs and diagnostic files to try and see what is going on...now this is elevated to next level and with the software engineers...

a long saga...and sadly NO solution lurking on the horizon.

Come on Apple... get your act together...

Believe me, I feel the same way!

I can't even go back to my back-up from October 2019 because I have added so many pictures since then. It's maddening.

I have decided to pull away from Apple Photos and spend my energy on PhotoStation by Synology. The catch is you need to have a small Synology box on your network and I understand that many do not want to go thru the expense & trouble. I personally did and I am happy I did. You can "tag" photos, create albums, view them anywhere, etc... Quite a good product overall, but again, I understand it comes at a $ cost.

My issue with reverting back to a clean install of Mojave is that it may or may not resolve the photo sync issue and will take a lot of time to rebuild the library with all the folders and album.

More importantly it may cause other issues specifically with iTunes and my music library. iTunes is done and going away in favour of Apple Music. If Steve Jobs was around iTunes would have been decommissioned a long time ago in favour of the monthly subscription model in Apple Music.

Eventually an upgrade will be required to fix one or another. Right now the loss of functionality in syncing photos sucks but losing functionality of my media would be worse.

Alternatives offered by NAS providers like Synology and Western Digital will do for now. I use WD MyCloud. The interface isn’t pretty like Photos as it’s closer to Finder but it will do until I find something else. I have no hopes in Apple fixing this as they will move to cloud bases interface on a subscription model.

I’ve been following and contributing to this thread for months. I see all these work around and it’s great that these work for some. My work around was by creating smart folders using the rule “album name is _______” then renaming the smart album created by putting a “z” in front of it. Yes this worked for me, but still not an acceptable solution. Honestly I feel that the problem must be so big that I wouldn’t be surprised if this will be fixed by an update. In June Apple will likely announce a new macOS operating system that will be due for released in September (and last years release of Catalina was delayed for October). Anyway, I just get the feeling that it’s probably a bigger issue where perhaps the i frastructue in macos needs to be rebuilt ? Anyway it’s all assumptions from me but when you are desperate for a solution, sometimes it makes it easier by holding hope! So, we will see. I am

using the latest beta for macos but haven’t sync’ for attempted a sync since updating. So yes will try this at some point and see if

it works

I waited several months before finally upgrading to Catalina and finally did it last week. I had hoped that all of the little bugs would be ironed out by now. I think most of them are but I'm guessing this one isn't a priority because the reports go back to last year and it's still not fixed.

I have all of my photos in 'Photos' now going back as far as 2004 and have spent time to organise albums and create and organise folders. I sync my pics for the last 12-months to my iPhone as well as some other key folders but now I can't sync loads of them back to my phone and that's really frustrating.

@Apple when do you plan to fix this bug?

I updated to iOS 13.4 and it APPEARS that it FIXED the duplicate issue! I have not applied MacOS update yet, so I think the fix involved is associated with the iOS software.

Now... I had previously been using a single dynamic folder at the top Photos level (as in "not in a folder") to trick it to sync 5 years of photos, so I have not tested going back to being able to using the Photos Sync tab to select which folders I wanted.

Anyone else see 1) duplication fixed? 2) folder level sync fixed?

Wow, there are 62 pages of this topic. I do NOT use the PHOTOS app but have 2 threads about my earlier issues (similar to those here).

With this latest update series, my photo sync issue appears to be fixed. Have a look here if you are interested. Again, not using iCloud OR the PHOTOS app.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250927454

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250716061

PHOTO SYNC ISSUES - EVEN AFTER iOS & iPadOS 13.4 UPDATE (and Catalina macOS 10.15.4 update) - GETTING DUPLICATES AND RANDOM WHITE “BLANKS” ON 2ND SYNC TO ON iPAD PRO - My first set of syncs to iPad Pro and iPhone 11 Pro from iMac Photos seemed to be overall okay yesterday - albums nested in folder DO FINALLY SYNC! like they did for me prior to Catalina - just missing 3 pics and vids from each of the iOS devices.

Today did a second sync, added 2 albums to sync to iPad Pro (only pics, no vids) and both newly added albums' number of pics on iPad Pro match exact number on iMac Photos. No duplicates, no blank white pics. HOWEVER - the 2 albums I synced yesterday, after the 2nd sync, now have random duplicates and blank white images.

2nd sync to iPhone 11 Pro - seemed to work - I see my Album which is all pics (no vids) and the number of pics matches the number of pics on iMac Photos. No duplicates in any of the albums - including the 2 albums I synced yesterday which is odd that I got dupes on iPad Pro today’s 2nd sycn but not to iPhone. Still missing 3 vids from an album I synced yesterday to iPhone.

For those having very slow sync issues - I am finding syncs faster since the last update - but I've left my Photos open on my iMac overnight - I find that helps in general after updates especially if you have a very large photo library (over 1.5TB).

Ok, that’s interesting. Yes, the senior advisor told me, they are fully aware of what’s going on and have the engineers working on this glitch. What’s really interesting though, is why they are only working with individual users, instead of trying to fix the main problem on a future update. That part seems odd to me. I guess we’ll see how it plays out.

This thread was started with an issue syncing photos stored in Photos using Finder to sync between your Mac and your iOS devices after installing Catalina. I think the confusion here is some people tried a workaround to the nested albums in folders not syncing issue by putting their pics in a folder in finder outside of the Photos app.

Sadly repairing the Photos library even in Safe Boot did not resolve my issue. First sync after repair I got 3 solid black images In an album containing only pics and 3 missing pics in an album containing pics and vids. Both albums are nested in a folder so at least that worked which is the original issue started in this thread but many of us having additional issues like random duplicates, missing images and blanks. Will try a second sync test tomorrow.