I created a shared folder with photos from a recent trip, then shared it with about 8 family and friends. None of them reported receiving an invitation.
I see many other people have reported similar issues. Has this been fixed? Or does this feature simply not work and Apple hasn't gotten around to fixing it?
I'm on an iPhone Pro Max 14 with iOS 17.4.1 (the latest as of April 27th, 2024).
Thanks for any help.
iPhone 14 Pro Max
Do your friends also have Apple devices and are also using iCloud?
You mention both shared albums and shared folders? There are two methods of sharing selected photos - I am not sure which of them you tried, but shared folders will not work, if your friend are not having iCloud accounts, only shared albums shared as a public website will work then. You will have to copy and save the link and send it per mail.
Shared iCloud folders are not available in all countries, and you can currently not share the photos from your shared iCloud Photos library at www.icloud.com , only the photos from your personal iCloud Photos library.
Yes my friends all have Apple iPhones and are using iCloud.
And yes I am attempting to share Albums and not folders.
I created the shared Album in Photos on my Mac, and then added invitees by selecting their emails as stored in Contacts. In Photos, when I select the "people" icon at the top of the window, I see the names of all the people I had invited. All of them have a question mark "?" in front of the their names. It is unclear/ambiguous what the question mark is supposed to indicate. Hey Apple, why do I have to guess???
Does it mean they received the invite but did not accept? Does it mean Photos does not recognize them as valid (even though they are), or does it mean the invitation was never sent for some unspecified reason? If I select the invitees' dropdown and select "Resend Invitation" Photos does not provide any confirmation of whether the invite was actually sent. The user is just left guessing. This is badly designed, Apple! Why doesn't it generate a "Sent Message" record somewhere -- perhaps in my Apple Mail Sent folder? It is impossible to troubleshoot because Photos gives zero information about what is happening.
I hope someone can help. It seems to me this feature (with so much ambiguity about what is causing the problems as explained above) is very poorly designed and I wish Apple would consider a total do-over of this feature.
To accept the invite they have to do it on device, where they are signed into iCloud with the Apple ID you used in the invitation. I am seeing the question mark, when the invitation has not yet been accepted successfully.
Sharing a photo album in Photos does not work
