Photos inconsistencies

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Level 1

36 points

Photos inconsistencies

I'm trying to share approx. 600 photos via url to a few friends, not all Mac users.

Desktop (Big Sur 11.6.4) I have created an album within My Albums and edited the photos. Then tried to share this album, but it wants me to create a Shared Album instead. I've done this and tried to add the photos but it just crashes - spinning beachball forever.

iPhone (15.4.1), I can see the My Album and tried to create a Shared Album, but it wants to download all the individual photos onto my phone first (on 4g with limited data). Bad idea.

Safari (15.2) iCloud Photos. I can see My Album, but there's no sign of Shared Albums. Confusing. So I tried to share the My Album, and it offers a url which it claims others can see. But no explanation as to what else those with url might also be able to see. And what happened to Shared Albums?

I've wasted so much time on this. It's a complete pain.

Posted on Apr 9, 2022 4:56 AM

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Answer 1

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léonie

Level 10

195,235 points

Apr 9, 2022 6:13 AM in response to SaltSeaShark

Shared albums are used to share smaller, downsized versions of your photos. Any photo will be stripped of its metadata, so you do not give too much information away, and then scaled down to 2048 pixel at the longest edge. To prepare the photos for the shared album, Photos will have to download all photos to your device. It would be best to share the photos in small batches, not too many photos at once. Then Photos does not need to download all photos at the same time.

Your shared album will be stored in iCloud, but in a different section of iCloud, as the storage used for shared albums is free and does not count against your iCloud Storage subscription.

The URL will be shown, when you view the shared album on your iPhone and tap the button with the circled head on top of the album. Tap "Share the link" in the public website brick of the controls for the shared albums and tap "Copy link".

To view the shared album, copy the URL and open it in a web browser. Mail the URL to your friends without an Apple device.

For the friends, who are having access to iCloud Drive you may want to share your original album as a folder on on iCloud Drive. Just select all photos in the album together, tap "Share" and then "Copy iCloud Link". You can then Mail this link to your friends with access to iCloud Drive. But share the photos also in small batches, not too many photos at the same time. Even if you can create a webpage with 600 linked photos, it will be very slow to load and if you share your photos in smaller groups, it will be easier for the recipients to browse the photos and download them.

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Photos inconsistencies

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