photo app scrambled all of my albums when I upgraded to Monterey

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photo app scrambled all of my albums when I upgraded to Monterey

I have three devices running photos, all synced in iCloud. Over recent years, from time to time some of the albums I have created within the folders I have created in iPhoto Events relocate themselves at the bottom of the list of all of the iPhoto Events. A handful of these 'sub-albums' were especially prone to do this again and again. I have not been able to isolate a 'trigger' for this irritating behavior.

A few weeks ago I upgraded to Monterey OS 12.1 on my laptop, and about 50 of my albums came out of their folders and were listed at the bottom of the list of iPhoto events in the left column. Before I spend several maddening hours trying to restore order, I want to see if anyone knows a fix.

iPhone Events is listed under My Albums. Is it wrong or risky of me to make folders in iPhoto Events? I think I began this practice years ago when the Photos replaced iPhotos and I likely moved things over, or is it normal for their to be an iPhoto Events folder in Photos?

Searching in Apple Discussions using 'photos scrambles albums' reveals that similar reported problems go back more than 10 years, and that in most cases many individuals 'have the same question.' Only a few of the answers are marked 'helpful,' and most of these are limited to specific very narrow circumstances.

As I have decades of serious digital photos, my curated and selected 'keepers,' sorted into about 200 names topical albums within about 30 folders, and most of them richly 'tagged' in the 'Add a Description' box, I have a huge amount of careful and consistent work at risk. Does Apple care at all? Is there a sure fix based on changing my practice, so I can again trust Photo with my creative passion?

Is there anyone out there has upwards of 10,000 chosen and curated images, sorted into named albums within named folders, with none of these problems? Please tell me if it is something I am doing wrong.

If you have successfully migrated your collection of photos to a different photo manager, were you able to save your created metadata (Add a Description, Add a Keyword or Assign a Location) when making the move?

Screenshot illustrates my organizational use of folders containing albums, and my use of the 'Add a Description' field.

Thank you for reading and helping if you can!

MacBook Pro Retina

Posted on Jan 16, 2022 9:08 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

léonie

Level 10

200,759 points

Jan 16, 2022 9:56 PM in response to OpusBird

Which other devices are syncing with iCloud Photos? Another Mac? An iPhone? An iPad? Which system versions are installed on the other devices?

I am having an iCloud Photos library with roughly 55000 photos and videos and more many albums in nested folders.

I have not used the automatically created iPhoto Events folder since several years. I deleted very soon after I migrated my main libraries from iPhoto to Photos, directly after Photos has been released in 2015, while still having Mojave installed. At that time the iPhoto Events folder has been behaving differently from the the folders I created myself. the albums could not be duplicated or moved around, so I recreated them in a new folder, names as I preferred.

My own set of folders and albums has been more stable, but occasionally they got messed up, when I started to sync an additional device with iCloud Photos, particularly, if the older device had a much older system version installed and also had albums in Photos.

I cannot tell, if the iPhoto Events folder is still treated differently from other folders, but would recommend, to create a new folder with new albums. You may also want to check, if an automatic sorting by date is applied to the folder iPhoto Events. If the subfolders and albums inside are sorted by date, the albums might jump around, if the date of an item inside an album gets changed during the syncing.

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Answer 2

léonie

Level 10

200,759 points

Jan 17, 2022 2:25 AM in response to OpusBird

Nowhere in the iCloud Documentation is Apple stating, that the arrangement of albums and the sorting of albums is supposed to sync between devices.

We cannot rely on any sort order to be preserved when syncing with iCloud Photos.

But the nesting structure of our folders will be preserved. My current solution to preserve the structure of my Photos Library across devices is to make a heavy use of nested folders. All albums are enclosed in Folders, and no folder is holding more than ten albums. This way I can find an album at a glance, even if the sorting has changed. Related folders of albums are grouped together inside folders or subfolders. It is easy to locate an album by a few clicks on the enclosing folders.

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Answer 3

OpusBird Author

Level 1

13 points

Jan 16, 2022 10:44 PM in response to léonie

Thanks, léonie

I have three devices synced in iCloud: iMac 21.5" mid 2011, running the highest it can, 10.13.6; MacBook Pro Retina 13 inch early 2015, running OS 12.1 as of just a few days ago, and an iPhone 7 running iOS 14.7.1

I just noticed that the scrambling is identical on the two computers, but the iPhone still has my desired arrangement of albums in folders as intended, with a minor exception. One of the albums appears correctly in its folder, but also appears in the next folder but is empty.

Your comment on iPhone Events encourges me to move all of my created folders and their contained albums to be directly in My Albums, but before I try that, is there some way that I can take advantage of the 'preserved arrangement' of my folders and albums on my iPhone?

How would I check whether iPhoto Events folder is set up to sort by date or any other criterion? In any event, my present arrangement—having my created folders containing dreated albums all within the iPhoto Events folder, did not resist any of my organizing attempts until about a year ago, when it began to consistently relocate some specific albums out of their folders when I had visited them. Only very recently did I have the severe scrambling I have described. I am inclined to think that whatever trouble is introduced by me still having the iPhoto Events folder, it is not related to it sorting things by date, at least.

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Answer 4

OpusBird Author

Level 1

13 points

Jan 18, 2022 8:00 PM in response to léonie

I have not seen Apple documentation promise to preserve the arrangement of my files and folders when syncing, either, but that only means "I can's sue them for scrambling (L O L)." It does not make my expectation unreasonable.

While I understand that there are technical differences between structuring a collection of photos and a collection of all other files (as done by Finder), I think that syncing via iCloud should, in both realms, regard every bit of the user's deliberate and intentional nesting and hierarchy as sacrosanct. When I invested, cumulatively, many hundreds of hours culling, sorting and describing my valued photos in Photos then sync with iCloud, it was with unquestioned trust. We won't be seeing that again. The utility of syncing across devices is completely lost if arrangement is at risk, even just a little, even if it is very rare.

It is nice that you have happened upon a 'safe' limit to the number of albums in a folder, and are fine having a far greater number of folders (or nested layers) in exchange, but Apple should not offer a photo organizing application that constrains cataloging, especially if it is not up front about the constraints. OS X does not limit width or breadth of nesting hierarchies, which means the user can truly tailor the collection to their personal logic. It supports, rather than limits, a scheme.

With that off my chest, I would like to ask you: how many nested layers of folders are you able to use in Photos, without upsetting the order when syncing? If I do as you say, can I really trust it?

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photo app scrambled all of my albums when I upgraded to Monterey

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