Mac Os Catalina do not sync photos with iOS Devices

I know this is an apple support forum, but am truly curious. Has anyone tried to sync an up to date iOS 13 device with windows, and seen if photos transferred over in full? Perhaps then isolating it to a Catalina or iOS issue?

Sensible thought - however, we’ve already established (take a look up the thread), that the issue started prior to Catalina, whilst Catalina may have made it worse and has certainly made it more opaque and difficult to troubleshoot.

CB

Now for my basic issues. In Catalina photo albums can be arranged in name order but when searching albums to place a photo in albums are listed randomly.

It is impossible to sync my albums in name order on my iPad and iPhone having done so in Catalina. Albums just appear randomly ordered. Additional issues all notifications are switched off on all my devices yet memories and featured photos still appear. The new curation system is farcical and childlike. I am losing control of my own personal data.

anyone any advice, or just wait for a future fix which may not occur ? Or maybe buy an android device instead ?

I should have known better than to update to new OS as I am having the same issues. Can no longer see any photos on Apple TV. If its not broke don't fix it. Hope they now come up with a fix for the problem they just created.

I was on the phone for almost 2 hours with Apple support and they have no idea of this issue, so I am glad to see that it's not just my iMac. It is a Catalina thing and there is an annoying work around, which is to move any folders you want to sync to the root directory. More about it in this article. It worked for me, but you do lose your folder structure. https://www.5kplayer.com/iphone-manager/fix-macos-catalina-wont-sync-photo-via-finder.htm

My photos do not sync and they are not in folders. Only just realised this last night - first time syncing with Catalina.

Had this problem for most of the duration of Mojave, then it was fixed just before Catalina. Now broken again!

Are Apple trying to force us to use iCloud by continually breaking the ability to sync..

Also noticed that smart albums don't seem to be working in Photos - anyone else had this?

@Elberto Your are right. Thats what I said in this thread more than once. It is not limited to folders. It happens to others too. I have never used folders in photos.

And this inability to sync convinces me once again, never ever to copy the pictures into the library (it is an option). I can easily switch to another software. My pictures are not in the library. They are in regular folders in the finder.

When I select albums in a sub folder and copy them all, I then paste in the root folder, but they then disappear from the original folder, as if I cut and pasted instead of copy and paste. What am I doing wrong?

Ok, bit of an update from me - for those who have the same issue with macOS Mojave (yes I know this is a Catalina post).

My issue was albums within folders in the Photos.app were not syncing, unless the albums were directly under the built-in "My Albums". ( and I was using macOS Catalina, all versions, including recent developer updates.).

After hours and hours and days trying different things, I went back to macOS Mojave. The risk of this was that I could do all this "reverting" back, and still be in the same situation.

I had 240,000+ photos and videos in Photos.app (stored within) and upon extraction manually, all these were renamed and a total chaotic mess.

1) I did a clean install or macOS Mojave, to the most recent date release,

2) created a BRAND NEW Photos.library on an external drive (as I normally would do).

3) used an application called GraphicConvertor 11 (amazing been using it for years), used this to fix my photo renaming issues, which took a few days to sort out.

4) imported all my photos and videos again however this time, I decided to host my images outside of the Photos.Library, so I have more control for the file structure so I made sure that "copy photos to library" was not checked .

5) after days of importing photos, I then used smart filters to sort my photos into albums and folder heiracy's as I would normally do within photos. I have left it a few days and left the computer and Photos.App open for sometimes 12 hours, at a time to allow photos to cache pictures and created thumbnails and stuff whilst I was not using the computer.

6) today, I decided to try and sync, however before I did this I backed up my iPhone 11 Pro Max, and did a brand new phone setup... I mean, no restoring from backup!!.

I just had my first attempt at syncing photos and it works. Albums within folders works.

the only thing that does not work as intended and this was happening previously, was, once I had synced for example , 1000 photos. and this was "complete" I decided to sync another album, and this process removed the 1000 from the photo and "re-sync'd the photos'. So, now I am doing all in one big hit as I only want 77,228 photos on the phone lol.

anyway, I know it's not the point, Catalina is what we want to work, but honestly, I won't be going back to Catalina anytime soon until some serious improvements are made. I am a bit of a geek, and when they announce a new operating system, I start to look forward to it, but... this was a complete destructible disappointment. "it just works" is a saying of the past.

Quicksilverboy

You and I have gone down the same path with same results on Mojave. The issue we face when on Mojave (removing photos on second sync, and then getting duplicates) is no longer a Mojave problem, but an iOS 13 problem.

So if they fix iOS 13, I would be happy to stay on Mojave. But precisely because of this, I don’t think they will fix iOS 13.

I see no light at the end of the tunnel.

Anyone wrote to Craig Federighi???

Not sure if this helps anybody but I have my photos stored in the Photos app with a folder for each year (eg. 2019 folder, 2018 folder etc) and then within each folder various albums (month, holiday etc).

i ended up favouriting the photos I like from various albums within folders and then synced my phone with all my favorites.

They appeared on my phone under From my Mac in sorted by favorites folder/album and also by the album they were associated with in Photos app on my MAC.

this may be an easier workaround for some?

Lately Apple sucks!!!

I have the same issue with my new iPhone 11 Pro Max an my iMac.

They need to fix the problem, otherwise I will force them to pay back all the money I paid for my devices, which now loose a signicant part of their function.

I have the same problem.

Photos application on my mac computer has 5.000 photos. 64 photos that I made key photos in the photos application cannot be transferred to my ios device. other than that, every time I add a new photo and sync it to iOS device, up to 1500 photos transferred as duplicates, because of this last problem i delete all photos on my iOS device and sync from beginning. :(

Well, I went back to my windows laptop so I could sync and get all my pictures on my iPad. Worked fine. I used to have the order of my pictures on my windows laptop mirrored on my iPad but Apple took that away months ago. I was told by tech that I had to have a Mac to do that. I bought a Mac and here we are. Not a good start and a waste of $1800.

I have created a new database in witch all photo's are imported. So no reference file in a separate folder structure.

And then synchronization works. Only problem is that i am kinda attached to my own folder structure.

Love Apple but i am not going to surrender my own file structure to Apples version.