Mac Os Catalina do not sync photos with iOS Devices

Got on to a support person today. HE guided me to do a few things including a safe boot, switching of USB port and I finally can sync my photo albums from my Mac mini to my iPhone 7 now. Thanks to Apple Support.

Quicksilverboy -

Sharing the same frustrations, I did the same of downgrading back to Mojave. Luckily, I have a backup of the Mojave-based photo library (and iTunes library) before upgrading to Catalina, so I did not have to painstakingly rename/reorganize photos as you did. What a bummer.

However, I chose to downgrade to Mojave 10.4.3 only, as I have read this is the only reliable version before syncing problems started within Mojave (I can’t confirm this as I hesitate to update to 10.4.6 just to see if there is any difference...)

Meanwhile, I can confirm with you that on Mojave 10.4.3, the syncing problems plaguing Catalina, namely inability to sync albums nested in folders or incomplete syncs, DO NOT occur. However, with Mojave, there are other problems depending on what iOS version you are syncing with:

With devices on iOS 12, i noticed that on each new sync of introducing the slightest of changes (e.g. adding one photo in an album), iTunes will remove a small number of previously synced photos, then only to re-add them, which is fine as this is only a time issue where the complete & accurate number of photos are synced in the end.

WIth devices on IOS 13, the same problems exists (removal & re-add), but iTunes seems to remove a larger chunk of previously synced photos, only to be re-added (which is fine again, only a time issue), BUT the worst being that DUPLICATES are now created under iOS 13, inflating the photos that you intend to sync by nearly 50%. Adding insult to injury and unrelated to this thread, Album Artwork of playlists synced on iOS 13 device are also messed up. Clearly an iOS 13 issue when no such problems on iOS 12.

These observations clearly confirm that we are facing multiple issues with the Apple software ecosystem. We have iOS 13 photo syncing RECIPIENT problems with Mojave already, then we also have Catalina photo syncing SENDER problems regardless the iOS version of your device.

Wonder which problem Apple will address first, if at all.

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.

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 have an open case about this and after spending much time with agents who had me doing silly stuff like starting in Safe Mode, I did get to speak to a Photos team expert who confirmed that Apple engineers are aware of this issue and are working on it. So it doesn't matter about them reading this, because they know. He also gave me a direct link to provide feedback to the Photos team, so if you want to write to them, here is how you do it: Photos Feedback http://www.apple.com/feedback/photos.html

So MacOS 10.15.2 didn’t fix the photo sync issue. But don’t panic. 

Another big issue concerning the new Music app has been fixed. OK, this discussion is about Photo, so most people here probably don’t care about that, but also in that case many users urged Apple that a solution had to be provided, and in the end they did. Please take into account that the disappearance form the Music app of a specific function (the Column Browser) could have been a strategic choice and not a bug. 

The Photo sync issue, on the contrary, is surely a bug of the MacOS Photo app. Or else it wouldn’t be possible to flag the nested albums in order to choose the ones to be sync’d. Maybe it’s not that easy to understand where the bug lies. Me, I’d take a look deep into the communication protocol between MacOS and IOS.

So, don’t give up. Let’s keep on sending feedbacks to Apple about this issue, I think it’s going to work at last!

One more thing - The reason I duplicated the albums rather than just pulling them out from the folders was to maintain the indentured structure I have built in Photos over the years (and before that in iPhoto). Once Apple fixes the Catalina problem I can delete the duplicates (they now sit grouped at the top on the Mac) and check off more complete groupings (like all pictures in the last year which will still reside in albums in a single folder) for synching to the devices.

Interesting. Now I updated the OSX and iOS.

still can’t sync photos inside folders. However, I can sync smart album under the root directory. Temporary workaround.

sync works if album is in root directory for me.

Hi,

I'm having the same problem since update to Catalina. I hoped that the update 10.15.2 would have solved the issues, but unfortunately there is no way to sync from Mac to iPhone.

after selecting the albums to sync, i click on Sync button, the sync-arrows begin to rotate (in Finder and on iPhone) endlessly (without syncing!).

...and my photos are not in subfolders.

i tried a solution posted here:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250712544?answerId=251609353022#251609353022

but it run well only one time.

and even that, it cannot be the right way for syncing!

other solutions?

thanks

andrea

Correct, my Synology unit is about 4 years old and likely disconnected.

Something like this might be a good unit, DS718+ , https://www.synology.com/en-us/solution/photographer https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1364345-REG/synology_ds718_diskstation_2_bay_nas.html

My Synology box is hanging off my my network and available inside & outside of my home, so yes, the network does need to be available, however, Synology allows the unit to go into sleep mode so the drives are not constantly spinning and it wakes on network access/request.

Photo Station is one of the many apps Synology offers, as well as back-up apps, music, mail, etc. Personally for the way I work, it's perfect for my needs and I understand that it may not suit everyone's needs or target price, so I was just tossing it out there as an alternative for folks to explore.

I hope that helps.

Got brave and synched my iPhone 11 Pro using same approach as with iPad.

Success again (iOS 13.3).

So, although it adds a separate burden to get the pictures I want on my devices -- at least it seems to work!

My issue remains unresolved. I’ve done hours with phone support, and the Genius Bar gave up. Full factory resets, library “repairs”, changes in mapping structure... nothing has worked. My phone continue to have odd duplicates and triplicates and other sync Issues.

I did a full report on the photos issue page with apple. My guess is apple will

have to implement a massive fix with some upcoming Catalina and iOS updates. I hope we don’t have to wait until the next Mac OS.

Yesterday I was working with Apple Support by phone to recover some mail which Catalina seems to have lost. That support was successful. So I asked the fellow helping me to check whether Apple was working this Photos synch problem. He said it is a known issue and, therefore, they are working to correct. So, I am optimistic that eventually the issue will be corrected.