managing a shared folder seems broken in ios 16.0.2

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Level 2

178 points

managing a shared folder seems broken in ios 16.0.2

I have 3 shared folders.

Since iOS 16: if I try to manage the shared folder and “collaborate” with someone; it changes all the “shared by me” to “shared with (my name)”

so firstly that’s my name not theirs.

secondly they then appear in the manage pop up and sometimes hide the button to manage the share.

then, only they appear on that pop up and not anyone else it’s already shared with.

yet everyone appears together when I actually press to manage the share.

I can’t share the example pictures here because some screens have their contact name and some have their real name in.

and finally; to top of the broken experience bonanza: if I try to share the folder by email; there’s now no option to share collaboration.

the email window pops up but you can’t type and in the background my iPhone tries to download all 100GB of the share. Which fails since I don’t have that much space.

so my option seems I have to use my old iOS 15 device to manage the share or my MacBook on macOS 12

or just face certain peril

Posted on Oct 3, 2022 1:30 AM

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Answer 1

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iZian Author

Level 2

178 points

Oct 3, 2022 1:20 PM in response to iZian

Looks like “collaboration” in iOS 16 adds tracking of the conversations where the link to the shared folder was shared.

it looks like Apple didn’t fully test how it behaves when you share with an individual who has a different name to your contact and thus a different name to the “conversation” from which they cannot be removed.

so removing them from the share warns they have not been removed from themselves.

then the folder will stay in their shared folders but have no access because iOS 16 detects the link in their messages. So the only way to remove the folder from their shared list after you remove them is when they manually delete the message which contained the share invite itself.

and to remove their face (the conversation icon for the conversation with them so their contact photo) from the share that they’re not part on the host needs to delete the message from the conversation that they sent to the recipient.

this finally removes them at both ends.

in iOS 15 this was all accomplished with the 1 click add person and 1 click remove person.

min iOS 16 it’s now a 30 minute process involving finding old messages and deleting those as well as removing access and with messages like “John Smith has not been removed from Johnny Smith” and contact info hiding the button to manage the folder until you keep clicking options until they appear in a list not overlapping.

terrible. Terrible testing. Terrible experience. Classic 2022 apple I’m afraid.

I ended up using macOS 12 to share the folders again.

also iOS 16 has an error sharing a folder which has already got individual files shared inside.

ios 15 just used to warn you and then unshare the files. 16 just says there’s an error sharing the folder and gives up.

so the solution is to keep an iOS 15 or macOS 12 device on hand to make life easier to manage sharing of iCloud folders.

the above took me 2 hours to figure out today

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Answer 2

iZian Author

Level 2

178 points

Oct 3, 2022 1:49 AM in response to iZian

Ok so I tried to remove the person from the share, that I’d added through iOS 16 collaboration,

I got the message “(real name) is still a member of (contact name in my contacts)”

so I removed their access from the list of people who have access. But their contact card still shows in the glitched “options” button when you look inside the folder.

So now I have no idea if they have access or not

is this just TOTALLY broken?

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managing a shared folder seems broken in ios 16.0.2

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