Expectations of Photos.app with iCloud

Question

Expectations of Photos.app with iCloud

Trying to understand how Photos.app on Sequoia MacBook Air interacts with iCloud photos.

I have an assortment of photos taken with my iPhone that I have imported from my iPhone placed in an album in my Photos.app.

I have then added titles to these photos in the Photos.app, but the titles of these photos remain unpopulated on my iCloud account and the album does not appear in my iCloud - Photos.

Trying to understand how to use albums and populate titles, keywords and captions once in the "Apple Photos world" (if possible).

This isn't very intuitive.

MacBook Air, macOS 15.1

Posted on Dec 4, 2024 11:50 AM

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Answer 1

muguy

Level 10

93,522 points

Dec 4, 2024 1:13 PM in response to James Palmer2

Is probably easiest to make changes using your Mac. Any chance will sync across devices through iCloud. iCloud.com access is less developed than the software on the Mac and iPhone

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Answer 2

muguy

Level 10

93,522 points

Dec 5, 2024 7:38 AM in response to James Palmer2

Is iCloud Photos enabled on all devices? Any photo that you take with your phone will be synced to your Mac. It sounds like your Mac does not have iCloud Photos enabled.

Photos > Settings > icloud

ensure iCloud Photos is on and the library is the device library.

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Answer 3

muguy

Level 10

93,522 points

Dec 5, 2024 8:02 AM in response to James Palmer2

You have options to best make the change. Be sure to have backups of your photos first (Time Machine, etc.). It's a good practice. regardless.

Your iPhone is syncing everything to iCloud. You're modifying after importing on your Mac. I would do the following:

Disable iCloud Photos on your iPhone after you have imported any new images you wish.
Delete all photos from the iPhone and iCloud. Confirm iCloud is empty at iCloud.com/photos
Turn on iCloud Photos on your Mac. Wait for your library to sync.
Turn on iCloud Photos on the iPhone

You can also just enable iCloud Photos on your Mac. There may indeed be duplicates but you can use the duplicates feature in photos (needs MacOS 13+ or iOS 16+ on Mac and iOS devices respectively) and consolidate quickly.

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Answer 4

muguy

Level 10

93,522 points

Dec 4, 2024 12:22 PM in response to James Palmer2

If you have iCloud Photos enabled, photos that you add to your library on any connected device or at iCloud.com, will sync to all other devices. Photos that you take on your iPhone would automatically be added to your photo library on your Mac if you use iCloud on both devices.

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Answer 5

Dec 4, 2024 1:06 PM in response to James Palmer2

So my configuration and/or understanding must be lacking somewhere.

I am attempting to understand how iPhone, MacBook Photos.app and iCloud.com all fit together.

Please correct my thinking / understanding - the best place to manage photo information, such as Title, Keywords, and Captions, etc. is on the www.icloud.com/photos site and information will sync down to my MacBook and iPhone.

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Answer 6

Dec 4, 2024 1:55 PM in response to muguy

I tried a updating several photos using my Mac and they didn’t appear on iCloud or my iPhone, so I’ve got a configuration or it’s a user problem.

Will try to retrace my steps and do some fact finding and reading to better understand what’s happening.

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Answer 7

Dec 5, 2024 7:07 AM in response to muguy

Here's what I believe is my issue.

When I plug my iPhone into my MacBook Air, the Photos.app starts and it defaults to displaying the Photos library, which does not show any photos recently taken with my iPhone.

I then click on my iPhone in the sidebar and I see thousands of "New Items". I was told that this is due to the fact that I have optimized storage turned on.

In order for me to be able to update info for these pictures / images, I need to import them to my Photos library. They do not display in Photos until I import them.

I then add titles, keywords, captions and then add photos to an album.

But, adding information to each image is only reflected on my MacBook Air, nowhere else.

Adding a photo / image to an album is only displaying locally in Photos. Some albums appear in iCloud, others do not. Not sure how to remedy that.

At this point, I'm not sure what I need to do to get new photos / images taken with my iPhone, to appear in Photos without importing them, and trying to get new albums created on my computer to sync to iCloud is not apparent to me.

This is where I'm at.

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Answer 8

Dec 5, 2024 7:44 AM in response to James Palmer2

As a follow up - Here is my Photos settings.

This issue is my error, but I'm reluctant to enable iCloud Photos. My reason for this reluctance is that my understanding is if I enable iCloud Photos, all "new" photos (4,000+) will be added to my iCloud library. That's what I want, but a visit to an Apple Genius bar a year ago because I was seeing a substantial number of duplicates. The genius rep. indicated that doing this would result in the creations of a substantial number of duplicates. Don't know why. My issue.

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Expectations of Photos.app with iCloud

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