Mac Os Catalina do not sync photos with iOS Devices

I've read the useful comments above, and did some looking at my Library Structure. I have NO referenced images, but suffer from the "can't sync from subfolders" problem. I took several of my subfoldered albums and created new top level Smart Albums matching the original subfolder album Title. This WORKS - these new smart albums of my identical subfolders sync just fine. I haven't duplicated any images but I have created a messier library structure with these "duplicate" smart albums - but at least I have finally been able to sync just the albums I want. Maybe this will work for some of you - I'm tired of waiting for Apple to fix the sync problem.

Like someone above commented, I have sub folders in each folder of years, and sometimes subfolders within a given folder too. So if you make a smart folder to match that, what criteria can you give that smart folder to accurately replicate a folder which is manually created? Like for instance, Trip to Italy, might have images from different sources, but they have been edited. Do you just do it by date? Another folder has selected best images from the Trip to Italy folder, so I guess in that case, if they were made favourites, you could make a smart album that chooses favourites only.

I don’t mean to offend anyone but making a smart folder to replicate a folder that’s already been created seems pretty dumb.

Please don’t take it personal I know everyone is trying to just offer up solutions and work arounds to something that seems so basic.

Thanks for the smart album tip, Loubender.

For the other comment about not meaning to offend, what are you talking about? We are trying to figure out work arounds here to solve a problem Apple has created. What are you on about?

How long have we been waiting for Apple to fix the problem with syncing subfolders ?? How long have you've been without your photos on your iOS devices?? At least using a duplicate smart folder gets my photos back on my iOS devices - that's the point of this discussion. When Apple fixes the syncing problem we won't need kludge fixes. in this case, the end justifies the means. Have a nice day.

My photos are not in folders or sub folders and they do not sync, so this is not just limited to those who organise their photos in this way.

This is issue also predates Catalina and Mojave, although we have had sporadic fixes.

In my household it affects all iOS devices of all ages.

Elberto, I can honestly say that I never had any problems syncing my library photos before Catalina and the associated iOS updates. I know folks on this forum have a variety of issues, and we have organized our libraries and photo locations in many different ways. Sorry to hear that you’re having syncing problem that go back so far. I do not use iCloud for any photo storage, but do share my Photo Streams and Shared Albums from various iOS devices and that also works ok. Hope Apple can get a handle on this too.

Did Apple anything change since October? It's December now! Anybody at Apple working on this sync problem? - Yes, I know, Apple does not read these community comments, but it is COSTUMER generated! Did somebody open an official case?

This is just one of many problems caused by Catalina. I never had this issue with Photos running in previous version of the operating system. It all starting with Catalina.

It is beyond belief that Apple would put out software that would not interact with their own software i.e. Photos and their own devices. I also believe that it is a mistake on Apple's part not to monitor these community boards.

I have written Apple on more than one occasion and have spent time on the phone with tech support. Depending on who you get on the phone, they either are aware of the issue or have no idea.

Keeping my fingers crossed for a solution to this issue soon.

Well, really the only way to get a response that will do anything is to sign up for the free level of developer on the apple site and submit bug reports through the dev site and feedback app - I get responses from the right folks (I think) when doing that. Just have to be very clear and objective in the reporting and they will look into it. Its odd, but I don't think these forums are monitored at all

that's awesome. how big was your library? mine still has about 2% of the total items (2800 out of 108k) to download, or so it says.

See photolibraryd working a lot so hopefully something is happening, albeit slowly

Finally, I bought a 200G iCloud subscription and sync'ed my photos and videos.

I needed only 87gig for my photos library but the space left will be available for the family ( backup of idevices for example).

I bought 2 years subscription with the 10% extra money promotion during black friday.

I was on with Apple Support regarding another issue and asked about why I was not able to sync my albums that were in folders on my Mac to my new iPhone 11 and I was told that Apple is no longer going to allow folders in Photos and that I had to move the albums I wanted to sync out of a folder

Given that we are told different things depending on who at Apple you speak to, we just don't know if that's true. I have been advised by a senior Photos tech that it is a known issue and being addressed. Other techs had me doing silly things like starting in safe mode to try to fix it. Having said that, there have been a number of baffling and stupid changes in the Catalina OS which serve no one, so who knows. Apple seem to be making "improvements" which do the opposite (see MacBook keyboard issues, for reference).

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