Shared albums are no more visible on the iMac

Hi stekarch.

Your reply does not indicate if you just rebooted the Macs or if you signed out of iCloud on both and then rebooted and signed back in one device at a time. As the shared albums are associated with iCloud, that will be a crucial step in trying to isolate the behavior.

If that does not resolve the issue, try toggling Shared Albums off and back one as outlined here:

If Shared Albums aren't working - Apple Support

If none of that resolves the issue, reach out to Apple Support directly for help with what may be an account-based issue.

Contact Apple for support and service - Apple Support

Cheers.

Hi stekarch.

That provides some good information for isolating this issue. As you say that things work normally in a second user account on the Mac, this appears to be an issue with some kind of data corruption in the user account.

If you are comfortable diving into the user library, try this:

1) Activate the Finder and then, whilst pressing and holding the Option key, click the Go menu in the main menu bar at the top of the screen. As long as Option is pressed, you'll see an entry called Library, choose that.

2) Scroll down until you find a file called com.apple.photos.shareddefaults.plist and drag that that to the desktop. Do not delete it.

3) Rename that file to com.apple.photo.shareddefaults.OLD.plist and reboot the Mac.

4) Open the photos app and check for your shared albums.

This process should force the system to create a new preferences files for shared items in the Photos app and may resolve this behavior. If they still do not appear, takes the word OLD out of the file you dragged to the desktop and put it back in the same place in the user library and then reach out directly to Apple Support for additional options.

Contact Apple for support and service - Apple Support

Cheers.

If an iPhone and Mac are signed in with different Apple ID and password on the same network and some albums are created from an iPhone https://support.apple.com/en-in/guide/iphone/iph3d2676c9/ios

And if the albums are deleted from Mac they will be still visible in an iPhone as the creator of albums is from an iPhone and the albums in iPhone will be intact , the way is once again create albums and share them in Mac see this thread https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8640802

Read these articles https://support.apple.com/en-in/guide/photos/pht884a8908/4.0/mac/10.14

https://support.apple.com/en-in/HT202786

https://support.apple.com/en-in/guide/photos/phtdfcac5c5/4.0/mac/10.14

You can add and remove subscribers to your shared albums. You can also change the settings for a shared album, such as whether subscribers can add their own photos to it, and whether people without a Mac or iOS device can view it on the web.

WARNING: If you plan to remove a subscriber from a shared album, it’s a good idea to let them know in case they want to save any photos or video clips from the shared album. When you remove the subscriber, you immediately remove the album and its items from the subscriber’s devices.

Note : renaming photo plist is never recommenced in user library .

Also if you ever had signed in with same Apple ID and password in an iPhone and Mac on the same network the albums would also have synced .

Hi Stefan.

That is some great info and it does point to this being an issue with the connection to the iCloud account. Check to make sure there is not any kind of reported outage in your area.

Apple - Support - System Status

If that does not help explain the behavior, you'll want to work directly with Apple SUpport moving forward.

Contact Apple for support and service - Apple Support

Cheers.

Hello stekarch and welcome to Apple Support Communities.

I see you are having an issue with having lost access to shared albums using iCloud Photos on a Mac.

As the albums are still showing on iOS devices, your best first step will be to sign out of iCloud (System Preferences > iCloud), rebooting the Mac and then signing back in. If that does not resolve the issue. Try signing out of iCloud on all devices (Settings > [your name] > iCloud on the iOS devices), shutting everything down and then restarting and signing back in one device at a time, starting with the Mac.

Cheers.