Albums in Photos App (Mac OS & iOS)

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Albums in Photos App (Mac OS & iOS)

I have a huge library of family photos on macOS Photos (~60k photos & videos). I intend to let everyone access all the photos on their devices (Macs, iPads & iPhones). I am subscribed to iCloud+ (200 GB) and have Family Sharing enabled. iCloud > Shared Albums is enabled on all devices (running macOS & iOS). All devices are fully updated to latest versions of OS.

Query-1: I have created multiple albums under "Albums" on my Mac which arent visible on my iOS devices (logged in using same Apple ID).

Query-2: "Shared Albums" created on iOS are visible only on iOS devices, not on Mac (although signed in using same Apple ID).

Query-3: There are some old videos for which metadata is lost, what is the best way to restore the original date ?

Query-4: Since the number of items are too large, I am unable upload everything on iCloud (200 GB storage limitation). Is there an easy way to split library ? Something like selected part of library is uploaded on iCloud & the balance remains on Mac ?

Sorry for a long question/s :-)

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Dec 17, 2021 12:49 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

léonie

Level 10

200,525 points

Dec 17, 2021 1:45 AM in response to darshanmandey

The standard albums and smart albums (under My Albums) will only be synced to your other devices, if you enable "iCloud Photos" on all your devices (Use iCloud Photos to store photos in iCloud). Then all your devices will show exactly the same photos and albums and folders, all metadata and adjustments. The smart albums are only synced to your other Macs however, not to iPhones and iPads, as these devices do not support keywords and smart albums. Family sharing does not help to sync your albums to the devices of your family members. You can share the cloud storage and other purchases, but not the content of your Photos Library.

To share with your family members use shared albums:

Shared Albums can be shared with anyone. You do not need to subscribe to extra cloud storage to use shared albums. But shared albums are limited. The size of the photos and videos will be reduced, and some metadata will be stripped, presumably to protect you from sharing accidentally too much information with the photos, the dates, locations, etc. http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4858?viewlocale=en_US

You have to add any information you want to share as a comment, when you share the photo.

You can have several Photos Libraries. I am using a small library, that will fit onto all my devices as my iCloud Photos Library. It has only my favourite photos and videos, plus the most recent photos I am currently working on. And I have separate libraries with all photos for each major photo shooting event, like a vacation, on an external drive with an archive of all my photos. On macOS 12 you can directly import photos from one library into another library: Import photos from another library in Photos on Mac - Apple Support (the one exception is the iCloud Photos Library, but we can select photos in any other library and import directly from the library, including the adjustments).

Which System versions are having installed on your devices?

This help page explains how to create additional libraries in Photos 7 on Monterey:

Create additional photo libraries in Photos on Mac - Apple Support

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Albums in Photos App (Mac OS & iOS)

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