iCloud connectivity

You are right about Shared Albums: Silly me! :)

One problem seems to be the risk of misinterpreting the full impact of the various options in the app settings:

I wanted to 'share' my photos, therefore I opted for 'Shared Albums', and BTW I am slightly disappointed that my first two supporters didn't catch this straight away - they knew that all four platforms of interest shared one common Apple ID.

(There seems to be no possibility of 'moving stuff' from 'Shared Albums' to 'My Albums' - so I will be forced to remove the folders from 'Shared Albums' and (re)create them from scratch in 'My Albums').

"I hope you still had full-resolution version copies of the photos from before you put them in Shared Albums"

I do, no problem there!

I think we may close the case here - many thanks for your patience and good advice! :)

"I am surprised that your two current devices were not staying synced, and that all four cut off syncing to the cloud on the same day"

• me2! :)

Although i did not modify any iCloud settings meanwhile, I might have updated macOS between the two incidents...I suppose that could be a possible explanation(?)

Anyway, I talked again with Apple Support this afternoon, and that solved some problems: Since all four devices share a common Apple ID, the supporter recommended me to store under 'My Albums' rather than 'Shared Albums', as hitherto. I tried that, and i t seems to perform a whole lot better.

"They don't have any status line at all below the line with the photo and video counts??"

they do...now!

I had my second Apple Support session on this subject today: We looked at a multitude of settings - on the iMac as well as on the iPad - and changed some of them...don't ask any details.

Bottom line is that it works better than before, but still far from perfectly: Upload to cloud photo library works smoother than before, but the individual 'albums' stil vary between platforms. Moreover I was informed that my older iMac/iPad can no longer be 'members of the family'!

I have reached the conclusion that the Photo app is designed to facilitate file exchange between platforms with current (/newer) Operating Systems - leaving the more obsolescent ones in the dark.

Moreover, the Support is by necessity focused on newer systems: One can't expect the supporter to be current on systems that were in use when (s)he attended kindergarten! :)

"Do they all say "Synced with iCloud Just Now"?"

I saw something like that a couple of days ago - but not now!?

"If not, what do they say?"

Newest iMac (M1 - Sonoma 14.3.1): 5057 photos - 8 videos

Older iMac (High Sierra 10.13.6): 2870 photos - 8 videos

Newest iPad (iPadOS 17.3.1): 2872 photos - 8 videos

'Antique' iPad (iOS 9.35): 2872 photos - 8 videos

"Also, do any of the photos you have added to the devices show up on iCloud.com? Which do not?"

All photos uploaded before February, 9 do - the ones uploaded thereafter are only visible on the same platform where the upload was done.