Mac Os Catalina do not sync photos with iOS Devices

Just a quick update. So I ejected both devices and plugged them both in. Allowed Finder to go through the sync cycle, then watched the number of photos and videos on both devices hoping the ejecting would re-establish and continue syncing the remaining photos and videos. iPhone is still stuck where it was. My iPad, however, is now losing photos and videos. Content is being removed despite it being added minutes ago, and I have BOTh divides set to sync my entire library. This is a hot mess!

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.

I have the same MacOS version, 10.15.1.

To setup your photo library as system library on your Mac just open the library with your photos app, then go to Photos > Preferences and click in “setup as system library”.

If you cannot do that, have you tested under Safe Mode or on a new user account (admin account tinha-se the same permissions as your main account)?

This information is all reasonably fundamental Daniel. The issue is that many of us have been syncing perfectly successfully (with the setup you describe) UNTIL Catalina and iOS13.

iOS13.2.3 is now available and I upgraded both my iPad and iPhone today and subsequently synced my Photos successfully with Catalina. This did involve transfer of 3 or 4 new Photos that had arrived in an album on my Mac and it all worked fine - apart from the sync process seeming to trawl through my other albums, temporarily messing about with the summary numbers etc. But I ended up with the right number of photos in all my albums on both devices so fingers crossed. Will keep you all posted.

CB

I just read what the iOS update is supposed to do and it doesn't mention the issue of syncing photos from MAC to device. Do you think that was one of the fixes and they just don't want to admit that there was a problem?

Also, are your photos in folders under My Albums? That was one of the big issues. I have years of albums filed in folders by the year.

Hi Patti. Yes - I read that too. And yes - I have 15 Smart Albums directly under ‘My Albums’.

May be fixed or maybe not. We will see. It did work a few times before, as I mentioned further up the thread, before suddenly going pear shaped again.

cB

cB - Is the sync capturing the location information? I mentioned in a previous post that in the Photos app on my iMac I don't see any of the location pins when clicking on the Places library. Its all blank despite the metadata on the photos showing it being entered. Similar issue with the People library.

I just want to provide a brief update from a previous post I made earlier on. I have notified apple through their channels of these issues.

Since updating to Catalina, I ensure my mac and my iPhone/Ipad, etc. are all up to date.

To get the pics to sync (which I have in their own folders by trip), I completely turn off the mac, turn it back on and then do a sync with the iPhone and it did take a long time but it seems all pics synced. I then turn off the mac, turn it back on and then do a sync with my second iPhone and all pics seem to sync.

The problem I have is with my iPad, I do the same process - turn off the mac, turn it back on and sync with the ipad. It does seem to sync the pics to the ipad but when looking on the ipad, it shows the number of photos as accurate but every single photo is a black box. About 5 photos do appear in total and they are spread out across a couple of albums. But other than those 5 photos - every other photo is just a black box.

I have not added any new photos to my albums as I have already learned that that will cause it to delete them all from the devices when I sync and I will have to go through the process of shutting off the mac and starting from scratch for each device.

So for now my albums are back (except for black boxes on the ipad) and I am not adding any new photos.

To clarify - I do not use iCloud and never have. I have always synced manually from mac to devices using a cable.

Cheers!

@Patti:

Exactly the same here, only the uppermost albums sync, but even in the synced albums few photos are missing. I haven't yet found out if they have some special properties.

In the meantime I think, I'll try another app that is independent form Apple Photos.

FWIW (not much) I was just at an Apple Store having a genius look at an issue with my iPhone. I told her about the photo synching problems and the two threads I am following. She said that they have a lot of customers coming in and complaining about these photo (and other) issues and that she agrees that Apple did not do a good job with Catalina regarding this.

Another update...the 13.2.3 update does not fix the photos sync problems. So my Photos library has 21,587 photos and 192 videos. Updating 13.2.3, the photos library went to zero on my iPhone...then without being plugged into my Mac, it began "Restoring..." and building the library back up. Well...it's "Syncing..." now and reporting 46,942 photos and 403 videos...and it's STILL CLIMBING! Yes, it appears my library on the phone is filling up with duplicates...maybe even triplets?

This is happening to me as well. Latest versions of Catalina and iOS. iOS seems to work - syncs all photos to iCloud. But the Photos app on my Mac hasn't downloaded new photos since October 2019. When I plug in my phone, it wants to import 5,000 photos. Those are the photos that are already in my library.

Very disappointing, Apple. Allowing you to manage my family photos is trust. Now I'm worried I'll lose those photos.

I know the feeling. Since it deleted all of my photo albums on my iPhone, I have not plugged my phone in again while I wait for a them to fix this problem (along with other glitches I have been hearing about). I'm going to buy an external hard drive and save my photo library to it so that I could I have all of that backed up.

I spoke to the Apple rep at Best Buy yesterday and he had no clue about the issue which was the same thing I found last week when talking to tech support.

Using MacOS Catalina 10.15.1 in conjunction with iPhone and iPad OS 13.2.3. Problem persists since I installed Catalina, syncing of Photos via Finder (cable connected to Mac) fails often. In most cases many pictures are duplicated and latest pictures are not included at all.

Running a library of +34.000 photos so full iCloud syncing is no option for me. Besides that I don't want every shot I take on my iPhone automatically be uploaded and shared. I only use the Shared Albums on iCloud, not iCloud Photos or My Photo Stream.

Apple should urgently fix this syncing issue with Finder as I start to lose my patience after having spent so many hours trying to resolve this, with zero results...

Well I am sick of this thread filling up my inbox. Went in to an Apple store yesterday, and the staff there were as clueless as tech support are. These threads are very obviously a waste of time. May as well be complaining on reddit instead of having to log in with Apple ID because nobody at Apple appears to give a **** about their customers any more.