Shared Albums never works - how to share full resolution photos?

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Level 1

11 points

Shared Albums never works - how to share full resolution photos?

Pulling what’s left of my hair out trying to resolve a long term photo sharing frustration.

I want to share family photos with my wife. And vice versa. I use the Photos app on a MacBook Pro, latest Big Sur OS. iCloud Photo Library is on, with originals downloaded to the Mac and optimised storage on mobile devices (we both have iPhone 12 Pro and iPads with latest OS). Photos are either taken on the iPhone or on a DSLR then imported to my photo library on the Mac.

I’ve tried the Shared Albums feature via the Photos for Mac app on multiple occasions. Invites to my wife work intermittently. When I add photos to the Shared Albums they don’t actually get added. When they do get added and I see them in the shared album on the Mac, they don’t show up on my wife’s iPhone. Etc. I find it very frustrating and have almost given up.

A little more research done and I’ve learned that the Shared Album feature also compresses photos so doesn’t share the full resolution image. That’s an issue if true. I’ve no issues however with the limit of 5,000 photos per shared album.

So, any guidance on how best to share full resolution photos between my wife and I? Is manually reviewing and Airdropping them the simplest approach? We can do that in both directions. We’re not wanting to share our entire photo libraries with each other, but just have shared copies of key family photos.

I’m not wanting to use Google Photos (privacy) so I’d rather stay in the Apple ecosystem if possible. I’d also rather avoid Lightroom or other apps as I’m already paying for iCloud storage via the Apple One Premier plan so it makes sense to use that to the full rather than pay another service. Photos app in itself is good enough for our management and editing needs.

Tips and experiences from anyone very much appreciated.

MacBook Pro 16″, macOS 11.2

Posted on Mar 5, 2021 12:22 AM

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Answer 1

Mar 5, 2021 2:11 AM in response to interbear

Hi

As you have found out - shared albums (including the shared family album) are very limited, not only compressing and reducing resolution, but also stripping out metadata.

If you want to share within the apple ecosystem the only way I can think of is to use a shared iCloud drive folder. Set up a folder you can both access, then export the images you want to share to that folder.

You can then either view the contents of that folder via finder/preview, or you could decide to import the contents of that folder to your own photos library. If you were to do that, I'd suggest two folders - one for your wife to share to you, and the other vice versa - to avoid importing duplicates of photos you've shared.

I'm doing something similar, but via a synology NAS drive.

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Answer 2

léonie

Level 10

201,709 points

Mar 5, 2021 3:34 AM in response to interbear

I am simply sharing photos with my husband by regularly exporting the best new photos to a stick and giving to to him. He can then select the photos he wants and import them to his library, and he is giving me his new photos the same way.

You can also save new photos in a shared folder on your Mac. When you share an iCloud link to selected photos in your iCloud Photos Library on your iPhone, the link will expire after a certain time. This may create complications.

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Answer 3

léonie

Level 10

201,709 points

Mar 10, 2021 1:56 AM in response to interbear

If you migrated an old iPhoto Library or Aperture Library to Photos, you may still have incompatible videos and image files in your library. Most of them will not show in the "Unable to Upload" smart album, so it is hard to track them down.

remove all PDF files from your library, and be suspicious of all older videos any photos you have not taken with a digital camera, but saved from emails or the web, or scanned from prints, or edited with external editors.

See this list for iMovie about potentially deprecated legacy media formats: About legacy media in iMovie for macOS - Apple Support

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Answer 4

interbear Author

Level 1

11 points

Mar 10, 2021 1:29 AM in response to léonie

Thanks - my wife only has an iPad and iPhone, no Mac, so the USB stick transfer method won't work.

I'll try the iCloud link method on a few though, see if that works. I appreciate the link is only temporary but presumably my wife could click on the link and download the photos to her library.

Right now I have another perplexing problem which is a "restoring from iCloud" message in the Photos for Mac app, it's been there for days so far with no progress bar to give me any indication of status. I've checked the file cache via finder (saw your advice to someone else on this) and create a smart album for photos that won't upload. Empty in both cases so I am a little perplexed. I've not switched iCloud off, this seems to have been an issue since my latest update to Big Sur 11.2.2.

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Answer 5

interbear Author

Level 1

11 points

Mar 10, 2021 3:33 AM in response to léonie

Thanks Léonie. My Photos library is 120GB which includes 19k photos and 1k videos. I did originally migrate from an old iPhotos library to Photos for Mac but that was years ago. I have not initiated any re-sync to iCloud through any action I am aware of and it's the first time I have seen this "restoring from iCloud" message for years. Seems quite random to me. I've just updated to the latest Big Sur 11.2.3. Plenty of space on my hard drive (where the system library is located) and in iCloud.

When I click on library within the Photos app on the Mac I get a 2 second flash of photos, then an "updating" message and then a "restoring from iCloud" message but with no progress bar.

I'll go scour my library for any files that may be causing this as you suggest.

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Answer 6

interbear Author

Level 1

11 points

Mar 10, 2021 1:25 AM in response to TonyCollinet

Thanks - that's useful, I will try this. I also found another suggestion to go to iCloud and share via an iCloud link, might try both.

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Answer 7

Mar 10, 2021 1:35 AM in response to interbear

How big is your library? If you've triggered a complete re-sync somehow, then this could take many days for a large library. As an indication, my 5000 file 50GB library took 48 hours full time.

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Shared Albums never works - how to share full resolution photos?

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