BIG problems with PHOTOS & icloud/PHOTOS with large photos library

Question

Level 1

5 points

BIG problems with PHOTOS & icloud/PHOTOS with large photos library

Hello,

I am getting more and more disappointed by apple mainly around PHOTOS & iCloud, so many things do not work .... it is crazy).

Case:

- I have approx 100’000 photos and approx 500 Albums in various sub folders and all organised in custom sequence, around 500 GB

- For the past 10 years or so all was local and 0 problems – I never needed my backup/restore

- 2 MAC, few IPAD and one Iphone (all on pretty recent SW update)

Issue:

a) I moved this to icloud (activated icloud 2T) since then I constantly had to do backup restore (4 times). I now switched icloud off and concluded it does not work (at least) with large libraries

b)I then had various of those cases:

While I worked on an Album photos moved by themselves around in the album
I copy albums and the copy places the photos in an other order (Apple support witnessed this)
After a clean reload of the library on Photos and empty devices after adding the 2nd Ipad some albums are not placed in the right location and this then replicate on all devices including on the main MAC
For every roll back I need to reload the full backuped library and reload all photo to cloud & devices (taking ages)
All photo counters between devices and cloud are different (even on 2 same ipad)
Title photo different from devices to device & cloud
Etc (many many other smaller strange and un-logical things)

c) The (sort of) good thing is that there is nothing I can do wrong as there is no configuration parameters (basically it is on or off)….

d) I spend hours and hours with apple support, nice person but totally useless as they cannot do or see anything on the cloud side. So basically they ask me to delete & reload and after the 4 attempts over weeks I just stopped given apple is able to do nothing.

e) Premium company and premium prices, 400B$ company and such stuff does not work – I find it crazy. I lost trust, if icloud messes with my photos and albums I cannot use the solution as if I do not notice it after months years I will end up with a “big mess”

The crazy things:

No roll back possible= if you loose (or even by accident delete several albums) then you are obliged to do a FULL backup roll back (on 100k photos this is a pain) as you cannot recover albums.

Question: I know other also have such issue….some has the same experience? Ideas?

thx

Regards,

Michael

Mac mini 2018 or later

Posted on Dec 2, 2022 3:51 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

léonie

Level 10

197,613 points

Dec 2, 2022 8:15 AM in response to Michael_CH

I have worked with three different photo managing applications, made by Apple - iPhoto, Aperture, Photos for more than twenty years now. None of them has been designed to preserve the sequence of photos in albums, when moving albums around, duplicating albums, adding the photos from albums to a slideshow or use them as screensaver, and particularly, when syncing albums between devices. Most of the time selected photos are treated as a random set of photos, not an ordered sequence. The Photos user guide is nowhere promising to preserve the sorting of items, when we select an album or photos in an album, to do something with them, for example create a slideshow from them or a Memory. It is hard to tell a story with our photos, when Photos is giving priority to an esthetical layout instead of our custom sort order for dramatical reasons.

I don't think it is a bug, as Apple does not promise in the documentation to keep albums sorted when syncing or exporting, it is a neglected feature. I am disappointed that the developers cannot understand, why the sorting of photos albums, slideshows, memories is so important when presenting our photos, and that we are investing a lot of work and time into the sorting, and that it should preserved with a high priority when transferring photos between devices or archiving our photos.

Reply

Answer 2

Yer_Man

Level 10

164,010 points

Dec 2, 2022 8:15 AM in response to Michael_CH

I think you need to be realistic. Photos is a free app. It's aimed squarely at people shooting with iPhones who - frankly - want the app to do the work involved in processing and organising the images for them. You get what you pay for. More demanding users need more powerful applications.

Reply

Answer 3

Michael_CH Author

Level 1

5 points

Dec 2, 2022 8:30 AM in response to Yer_Man

:-)) free? So Apple 400B$ company is making free SW? I did not have such a good laugh since long, thanks.

And the 2T iCloud free? That so cool ! That said the SW you proposed is less expensive than just the 2T cloud....

And not to have album and pic just moving around is an advanced demand?

But thx for the answer.

Reply

Answer 4

Michael_CH Author

Level 1

5 points

Dec 2, 2022 10:59 AM in response to léonie

yes ! To me it is total science fiction.

I mean since the beginning people do albums (paper based) and the do not stick pictures randomly but in a sequence.

It is a basic function and even an imbecile can figure this out....

The iCloud/Photo rubbish totally neglects the importance of albums and the above .... so I moved back to no "cloud".

Also I need to export my pict in sequence so I can copy them to my wife laptop.... even this does not work (apple to apple), I mean why I not just copy albums??????.... via cloud neither by the way (only the very last version seems to have a solution but I am not gonna touch this).

By the way Aperture was absolutely great !

Annex question: as you seems to know what you talk about, do you know a better product? Is google better?

Thx :-)

Reply

Answer 5

Yer_Man

Level 10

164,010 points

Dec 3, 2022 7:03 AM in response to Michael_CH

And if you stopped using Photos, how much would you save? Nothing. You'd still need to spend that money for that hardware. The price won't come down $10 if you say you won't use Photos. Use it or don't, the price remains the same. Exactly like a scenario where the app is free, no?

So, yes, of course, the cost of developing the app is sunk into the device cost. But the point is to remember who the app is aimed at. It's not for everyone, nor is it meant to be. Photos is not the best photo app ever made. It's not even the best photo app Apple ever made. But it is created to be effective at its price point for a cohort of users. Not every Apple user by a long shot. It's the same with Pages/Numbers etc. The app is designed in a way that leaves space in the ecosystem for third party developers to produce more powerful applications aimed at more demanding users.

Reply

Answer 6

léonie

Level 10

197,613 points

Dec 3, 2022 8:03 AM in response to Michael_CH

Aperture has been leading edge technology for professionals, and still very intuitive to use.

But it has been strictly limited to a local single user library - no attempt to create a shared cloud library or syncing the full library between our devices.

Given the Apple universe of many different device models - Macs with Apple silicon or Intel processors, iPhones, iPads, iPod touch, Apple TV, and many different system versions with different versions of Photos, it is a very daunting task to support iCloud syncing of the complete library. Apple is wise to keep the Photos.app and the Photos Library simple and basic on all platforms to be able to cope with the many dependencies on the different platforms. Testing and maintaining the different version must be a nightmare.

I am sticking with Photos for the time being, as most of my devices are made by Apple.

I am using it mainly as a DAM to sync with iCloud, with PowerPhotos as a second browser for my Photos Libraries, many AppleScripts (I like to program!) and Houdah Geo to manage the metadata. For advanced editing I am using Luminar Neo. I like photo centric editing tools in Luminar, but not the price policy and aggressive advertising of the manufacturer.