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How to identify photos not in an album incluing shared albums?

I know how to identify photos that aren't saved in any album - by creating a smart album as explained in this thread - https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7544290


However this doesn't appear to work if the images in question have been placed in a shared album - so is there a way to identify photos not in ANY album?


Thanks to anyone who can shed light on this :)

MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Jun 27, 2020 8:53 AM

4 replies

Jun 27, 2020 9:23 AM in response to Community User

You realize that that topic is 3 years old. There have been changes and problems with that particular smart album and it has been documented in this user tip in case you haven't run across it already: Problems with the Smart Album Rule: Album is not Any in Photos 5.0 - Apple Community. I don't know if it has anything to bare on your Shared Album issue though.


Jun 27, 2020 11:31 AM in response to Community User

I see no way to to find out automatically which photos have been shared in shared albums. Apple Script for Photos cannot access them. Smart albums have no rules for Shared albums. Photos 5 on Catalina is renaming the filenames of the shared photos to something cryptic, so we cannot even search for the originals of our shared photos in our library by the filename. the photos in the shared albums are smaller duplicates, that are not a part of the Photos Library.

You could add to every photo in your library that you you share a keyword, and search for the shared photos by searching for the keyword.


Jun 27, 2020 10:50 AM in response to Old Toad

Cheers for that Old Toad. To be honest I didn't check the date of the that post but it seemed to work for regular albums, at least as far as I can tell so far.


I'll have a look through that post you linked - I spotted it mentioned apple scripts can be used so that might be a better route to take.



Leonie - I get that shared albums are different but I didn't want to assume it meant what I want isn't possible. So are you saying it's not possible?

How to identify photos not in an album incluing shared albums?

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