Mac Os Catalina do not sync photos with iOS Devices

The earlier syncing problem was with Hugh Sierra and that took pages and pages of these Apple discussions. The writing was on the wall then to change iTunes and syncing photos...and forcing us to go the iCloud route with cost for storage if you had lots of photos. That worked a treat and I was happy to pay. All went smoothly until Catalina hit the stage... TOTAL DISASTER for syncing photos albums and paying for iCloud does not help...it does not work as it did with Mojave and albums are totally ruined... my iCloud photos file looks like a dog’s breakfast and nothing like what I have on my Mac.

hours of work with a consultant and loads and diagnostic files sent to the ‘engineers’ has yielded NO solution as yet.

FEELING TOTALLY DISILLUSIONED WITH Apple...have used it for over 40 years and not happy with the destruction of my once well organised photos.

Tell me about it, have been a MAC user since 1989, built my post production business around Apple products and now totally disillusioned too. Have to be careful what I say as the moderator deleted some of my other posts. What happened to freedom of speech?

Had a few hours this morning so I took the exported folder of photos from Mojave, reverted my OS from Catalina to Mojave, imported all 22k photos/videos into a new library in Mojave (with no folder structure at all), then plugged in my phone running iOS 13...itunes launched and said something to the effect of "software must be installed to allow this device to sync with the older software on this computer." I allowed it to install since I had no choice, and it started to sync...itunes stated it had completed the sync, the phone still indicated "syncing" and was missing about 5k Ish pictures, and never finished. I had to restart the phone, the app on the phone, the computer, then uncheck "sync photos" for it remove the portion. I tried several more times and combinations and ultimately, it did the exact same thing as when I sync with Catalina, but through iTunes.

I assumed originally that if I reverted to Mojave, and didn't even use a "photos library" at all, just imported all photos like I was starting from scratch, it would work...it did not.

Just FYI to all.

Who said?. It is a discussion forum so this sounds like a perfectly legitimate question.

Surely us users should be able to get help from these forums and the solution to this issue lies surely in a new release of Catalina.

for a long time reading the thread and surprised to absolute ignorance of the bug from Apple side. All feedback forms gave no result. I do believe that Apple pushes the users to use iCloud for the photo storage with such approach. And probably the only way to get Apple’s attention is that people in US start giving back new devices since in other countries it is not so easy with the guarantees etc.

Very sad((

surprised to absolute ignorance of the bug from Apple side. All feedback forms gave no result.

If you read the terms for this community, there should be no surprise at all.

Apple does not use this community to communicate to its users.

In response to Barrelldog, I have been using iCloud for several years now and it certainly does not sync Albums or Folders running Catalina 15.3

I ,like you, have spent countless hours with tech consultant, sent logs screen shots and diagnostic reports to Apple . As yet, no solution.

my photos library will sync across devices and that is all.

If I connect my iPhone or iPad to my Mac, photos wants to import ALL my photos again as it does not recognise they have already been imported.

Spending money on iCloud is NOT THE SOLUTION.

getting very impatient to have this issue resolved after 5 months of trying.

I found a workaround, that really works!

Make shared-albums, they sync perfectly well. Only downside: you need to move every single photo one-by-one since there is no way in a shared album to resort them.

As bad as I feel for this situation, it actually fills me with Apple will have to do something at some point. As iCloud which is paid for still doesn’t solve the problem they really are in a mess!

sort it apple

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 am a retired IT professional and cringe each time I think of the many, many people in the US let alone worldwide, that pay each month $1 for the extra space in iCloud to manage their ever growing photo library. I can hear the CHA CHING of the cash register.

Many in this thread use syncing to manager what photos are on their iDevice while their main repository of photos resides on their "Macs". We control what is on our devices at any point in time using the sync. Unfortunately many consumers do not venture into syncing because it's "too technical". Users avoiding the additional fee for extra space probably makes this bug a lower priority.

Let's hope the next release finally addresses this bug.

I'm asking myself if the problem is rooted in the macOS itself (file system, Photos app etc.), or in iTunes (even located as a Finder page, it's certainly the old iTunes routines which will work underlying).

Has anyone tried to install an old iTunes on Catalina using Retroactive (https://github.com/cormiertyshawn895/Retroactive)? I would try, to wanted to ask first of anybody her already tried it? Maybe using an older iTunes (from the times where it worked) would do the task of syncing our nested albums.

Markus

@mgoemmel: I assume you are right. My sync doesn't work since more than one year. The issue started with an update with one of the last iTunes versions. So my issue is not connected with Catalina but iTunes

Anyway - it doesn't help: Apple needs to fix it whatever the root cause is finally...

can't sync my photos since 6 moths and iOS sync generally is luck. sometimes it works, sometimes not.

this is not a normal product experience!

Sorry guys, but we are not the target clientele anymore.

2005 I switched to Mac because the pain with windows was to big.

history repeats..

Pending final Apple resolution in future update...the original post observation of;

“apparently it syncs the albums under the root "My Albums" but is not able to sync the albums that are inside a folder.”

provides the required info for the most simple stress free quick interim solution. Just select the desired the desired sub folder(s) with desired photos you desire but unable to sync, right click sub folder(s) and select “move...” which relocates sub folder to root “My Albums”, then go back to finder and under locations locate ios device to be synched then select relocated folder(s) under photos, apply and sync...worked like a champ 👌 after several days of following the recommendations of other Apple Community threads without success ! Its the “root” (of all evil) bug 🐜 so workaround and move on pending future update.