How to transition from Mac photos including Albums and smart albums using keywords to iCloud photos

sgordon70 wrote:

1.

I have been using a Mac photo library for many years and download my iPhone and Ipad devices photos onto that Mac hard drive’s Photo Library. I have many photos going back close to 20 years on my Mac. I have may manually maintained Albums in that library as well as smart Albums created using Keywords. I have also tagged faces and keywords to photos. I also sync from my Mac library certain photo albums I want to keep handy on my devices.

What will happen to my very well organized albums and photos with keywords and face tags when I activate iCloud Photos on all of my devices?

For the most part, nothing.

There are duplicate photos on the two devices (one on my Mac library and one on a device that I synced to it). Will iCloud sort this out or will I end up with two copies of things? Should I remove all my sync’d content before turning each device’s option to use iCloud for photos?

Anything in your library on any device will become part of your library on all devices. But, if you have been syncing by connecting your devices to your Mac, you'll first be asked to remove your current pictures when you enable iCloud photos. You cannot both sync using iCloud and sync using your Mac.

2. Will the Albums on both devices and the folder structure in Photos on the Mac be uploaded to iCloud and then be accessible on both devices? I’d hate to lose my very well thought out organization and albums.

Your Photos library remains in tact. And, for the most part, will mimic on your devices. Smart albums will not sync through iCloud.

3. Will any of the photos on either device be erased and lost from this initial turning on iCloud (assuming I will sync down all photos from my devices first to my Mac library, perhaps clear out all sync’d albums on the devices, then turning on the iCloud photo service?

Your Mac contains your library. Anything on your devices synced from the Mac. So, yes, as indicated before, those devices will lose all of the current photos synced in favor of iCloud syncing.

4. Does Photos in iCloud allow you to create smart/keyword shared albums or is that a very manual process?

No. Smart albums are not supported in iCloud. You can still create them on your Mac and then copy those items into a separate album if you wish.