Can I share my Photos library via iCloud?

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Level 1

132 points

Can I share my Photos library via iCloud?

I have Macs in two widely separated locations. Essentially I have two Macs and both are running Photos. I would like them to share the Photos library so that all my photos and all my projects (like calendars etc, now offered via third-party suppliers but integrated to Photos). I can't see that this is possible. I know that I can store all my photos on iCloud, but this is just a collection of pictures, not the structured library one sees on the Photos app.

As an example, I created a book using Motif on one of my Macs, but now I've moved location and I'm working on a different machine and the book is not visible because it's been left behind in the Photos library in my other location. Is there any way I can access that book from where I am? It is so easy to keep documents from other Apple apps like Pages and Numbers on iCloud so that they can be worked on from anywhere, so you'd think it would work with Photos too - but does it?

iMac 21.5″, macOS 10.13

Posted on Aug 11, 2020 10:51 AM

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Answer 1

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léonie

Level 10

195,013 points

Aug 11, 2020 12:04 PM in response to Living Fossil

That is what iCloud Photos (Library) is for (https://support.apple.com/guide/photos/from-icloud-photos-phtf5e48489c/mac). If you are using the same AppleID for iCloud on both Macs and enable iCloud Photos in the Photos > Preferences > iCloud, the Photos Libraries on both Macs will upload to iCloud and be kept identical on both Macs. It will even work, if both Macs are running different system versions. All your albums and folders and the adjustments to apply to your photos, the titles, captions, keywords, faces will be kept in sync. With iCloud Photos you will just have one common library in iCloud, mirrored locally on your Macs.

But it is not possible to move the Photos Library to iCloud Drive. It will be damaged by the syncing on iCloud Drive. Use the iCloud Photos feature.

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Answer 2

léonie

Level 10

195,013 points

Aug 24, 2020 2:52 AM in response to Living Fossil

But it is not possible to move the Photos Library to iCloud Drive. It will be damaged by the syncing on iCloud Drive. Use the iCloud Photos feature.

iCloud Photos is perfect for syncing your library across devices, even if the devices are using different versions of Photos and different systems.

What I meant is the following:

When you use iCloud Photos, Photos will upload your photos and videos to Apple's servers and create the iClous Photos Library there. iCloud Photos Library on Apple's servers is hidden for us. We can only access it through the Photos.app or on the web interface at www.icloud.com. It does not show on iCloud Drive,
So we will need a local shadow copy of the Photos library on your Mac. The Photos.app will be working with the local copy, and this local copy will automatically sync with the iCloud version on Apple's servers.

The local copy of the library is needing local storage, and some users have been tempted to move it to iCloud Drive or into their Dropbox or Google Drive to save storage. That does not work. A Photos Library must not be stored in any folder that is synced over the network. The library will be damaged by the syncing. Keep your Photos Library in a local folder - in your pictures folder or on an external volume with a wired connection, not on a network share and let iCloud Photos do the syncing.

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Answer 3

Living Fossil Author

Level 1

132 points

Aug 11, 2020 1:32 PM in response to léonie

Thanks Léonie for your reply. Sadly I have obviously misunderstood what you say.

First you say that everything can be included in iCloud Photos, so that all one's devices are in sync and all the folders and adjustments are maintained in one place: excellent!

But then you say one can't move the Photos library on a particular machine to iCloud drive. So what can I do with my Photos libraries on my different devices to make them end up one one universal library on iCloud? If I can't move my existing libraries, what can I do with them? Are you suggesting I somehow discard them and start from scratch? Obviously I don't want to lose them, since taken together they represent many years of image making and family history. Sorry to be dumb but I don't see how to proceed to get the advantages of having a location-blind library in iCloud which includes the albums and projects collected in the past.

(By the way I seem not to have included my latest updates in my description of the hardware and software I'm using: basically both my main Macs are running Catalina.)

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Answer 4

Living Fossil Author

Level 1

132 points

Aug 21, 2020 2:56 AM in response to Living Fossil

Still hoping for some clarification here! Recently I moved locations and Macs, and I wanted to take a Photos project (done using Motif) with me. As apparently I couldn't do that, I exported all the relevant photos to a USB key, took a screen shot of the pages of the project on my original machine, took the key to the other location and painstakingly reconstructed the project using the screenshot as a (not very accurate) guide! Seemed crazy, but I didn't have the time to experiment with other methods.

I still don't understand if what I wanted to do - stop working on a Photos project on one machine and resume on another one - is possible. If one can do it with Pages, Numbers, etc, why not Photos? Is there a workaround? Could I for example export the entire Photos library on each machine and reload them into iCloud photos? There are many Gb involved, and anyway I am now quarantine-banned from my original location, but I'd still like to know what is possible.

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Answer 5

markwmsn

Level 6

15,017 points

Aug 23, 2020 8:29 PM in response to Living Fossil

Rather than moving the library to iCloud Drive, one enables iCloud Photos (a different iCloud service specific to photos and videos).

Sadly for your use case, iCloud Photos does not sync Projects among Macs. In principle, third-party software could have its own equivalent sync facility between computers outside of iCloud Photos, but Motif does not (as far as I can tell).

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Answer 6

Living Fossil Author

Level 1

132 points

Aug 23, 2020 9:24 PM in response to markwmsn

Thanks for the reply. I accept that Photos projects are not portable, but that still leaves the big question about iCloud Photos. What, if any, is the relationship between the photos kept in the iCloud Photos cloud (I understand this a special service separate from the rest of iCloud) and my individual libraries owned by the Photos app on my different Macs? Can the Photos app access iCloud Photos by importing the pictures from the cloud, or is there an actual Photos library in cyberspace, as it were? If that is the case, what happens to the Photos library on the individual Macs?

In real life, I probably have more than 10000 photos in each of my Mac Photos libraries, and some pictures appear in both libraries. If I start using iCloud Photos today, what is the future for these individual libraries? I am (as you see) totally confused!

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Answer 7

markwmsn

Level 6

15,017 points

Aug 23, 2020 10:16 PM in response to Living Fossil

As the devices are connected to your iCloud Photos, their libraries (see Note 1) are merged with the cloud version, uploading and downloading as necessary. Exact duplicates are usually detected and do not create multiple copies in the unified library.

When new photos or videos are added to any device, they are uploaded to the cloud and then downloaded to the other devices. Similarly, when photos or videos are edited on one device the changes are made to the cloud copy and then to the copies on the other devices. Deletions on any connected device similarly propagate to the cloud and other devices. Eventually, each connected device contains the same photos and videos.

You can think of it as one iCloud Photos library that exists across all connected devices and in the cloud. Some prefer to think of the cloud copy as the primary copy, which the devices merely view, cache, and manipulate.

One way in which certain connected libraries may differ from the cloud/main library is that a device library may be set to "optimize" storage by automatically dropping the full-resolution copies of some photos and videos, retaining only lower-resolution versions needed for browsing the library. The cloud keeps the full-resolution versions even if no connected device does. This can help you manage a common library across devices of different storage capacities.

Note 1: Each user account on a Mac may have a maximum of one Photos library designated as System Photo Library (at a time). Only the System Photo Library can be connected to iCloud Photos. Other Photos libraries will not sync to iCloud Photos.

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Answer 8

Living Fossil Author

Level 1

132 points

Aug 23, 2020 11:42 PM in response to markwmsn

Thanks! This is by far the clearest explanation of the relationship between iCloud Photos and the Photos app that I have ever seen! Later this week I hope to hook up to a fibre optic connection at my location, so I should be able to upload at reasonable speeds.

I am left with one more question. In the first response to me on this topic, Léonie said:

But it is not possible to move the Photos Library to iCloud Drive. It will be damaged by the syncing on iCloud Drive. Use the iCloud Photos feature.

What did she mean?

I have just one more question - in the first reply to this topic, Léonie appeared to warn against trying to sync libraries using iCloud Photos. I am still not clear what she meant.

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Answer 9

Living Fossil Author

Level 1

132 points

Aug 24, 2020 4:19 AM in response to léonie

Thanks Léonie

I never expected to push my Photos library off my Macs - my motive was and still is to move from one machine to another and still be able to continue editing photos. I would also have liked to do the same thing with projects like my Motif book - but I guess that is now the responsibility of the third-party suppliers that took over Apple’s Photos print services. I will approach one of them to see if they plan anything .

I feel I’ve learned a lot, so thanks again.

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Answer 10

léonie

Level 10

195,013 points

Aug 24, 2020 4:35 AM in response to Living Fossil

The projects are only available in the local library. If you want to use a project on several Macs, create a small photos library just with the photos for this project. You can keep this small library on a thumbs drive, so you can move it between your different Macs (as long the Macs are running the same system versions). Keeping the projects in separate libraries makes it easier to archive them as well. If the projects are in our main library we may accidentally delete photos that have been used in a project.

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Can I share my Photos library via iCloud?

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