Syncing iPhoto on iPad (iOS) with iPhoto on Mac. How to?

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Level 1

4 points

Syncing iPhoto on iPad (iOS) with iPhoto on Mac. How to?

I am using iPhoto on Mac as well as iPhoto on iPad.

Being a heavy (pro) user of iPhoto on Mac, I always organise by Keywords and Stars. When doing on Mac then syncing to iPad, it is easy. However if I were to go overseas and just bring my iPad with me, I would want to organise my photos using iPhoto on iPad (iOS), and create Stars and Keyword. But it seems it is not possible to sync it back to the Mac with my organised album.

How do I organise my photos on iPhoto on iOS, then sync the organised albums (with keywords and stars) with the iPhoto on the Mac?

Macbook Pro 15", Mac OS X (10.5.7)

Posted on Dec 9, 2013 8:02 PM

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Answer 1

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léonie

Level 10

195,113 points

Dec 10, 2013 5:12 AM in response to MacLover2226

What are your versions of ihoto on your iPad and your Mac?

I can only test with iPhoto 9.5 on the Mac and iPhoto 2.0 (IOS 7.0.4) on the iPad.

http://help.apple.com/iphoto/iphone/2.0/?handbuch#blnkbc26e276

See: Ways to share photos

It is not easy, to sync the albums you create on an ipad back to your Mac. You basically can transfer your photos to the Mac. Connect the iPad by USB and download the contents of the Camera Roll. The photo titles will be visible on the Mac in the description field, and custom tag will be visible as keywords.

So if you tag your photos with custom tags, and create custom albums this way, you can recreate them on your mac as smart albums based on keywords.

Any edited photo will have to be shared to the Camera Roll, so that he edits will transfer back to the Mac.

Ratings and Favorite flags will not be transferred. To sync your ratings to the mac use tags like 5*.

Regards

Léonie

P.S. Tags will also transfer, if you share the photos to the Photo Stream.

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Answer 2

MacLover2226 Author

Level 1

4 points

Dec 11, 2013 9:02 PM in response to léonie

Thanks léonie

I am using iPhoto 11 v9.5 on Mac and iPhoto 2.0 (IOS 7.0.4) on iPad mini Retina.

Since ratings and favorite settings are not transferred back to iPhoto, I find little use of updating that part on my iPad. However I like your suggestion of using Tags instead, since it could be transferred back to iPhoto. (THUMBS UP!)

I just hope that Apple would make this app more "compatible", so that things we do on the iPad could be transferred/synced to the Mac. I don't want to do double job. I am not talking about the full iPhoto app (mac) on the iPad, but little things like these (tagging and ratings) should be easy to configure.

Will have to wait for an updated iPhoto on iPad to do this then.

Also can we create SMART FOLDERS on the iPad? I can't seem to find info on that part.

Regards,

Leonard

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Answer 3

léonie

Level 10

195,113 points

Dec 12, 2013 3:14 AM in response to MacLover2226

Leonard,

I do not know of any smart folders, but for each tag you define, iPhoto on the iPad will automatically create a (smart) album containing all photos with this tag.

See this page of the iPhoto Online Help:

What are albums?http://help.apple.com/iphoto/iphone/2.0/?handbuch#blnkb9b1e2a

iPhoto creates the following albums as needed:

Camera Roll: After you install iPhoto on your device, photos you take with your device appear in this album.

Recent: The photos most recently added to iPhoto appear in this album.

Edited: Photos you edit using iPhoto. This includes photos you add captions to.

Flagged: Photos you flag.

Favorites: Photos you tag as favorites.

[Custom]: Photos you add a custom tag to.

iTunes: Photos imported from iTunes using file sharing.

[App]: Photos sent directly from other apps to iPhoto.

Beamed: Photos beamed from another device.

AirDrop: Photos transferred from another device using AirDrop.

Photo Box: If a photo appears in an album (Edited, Favorites, Journals, or

So your "tagged" albums will be created automatically on the iPad.

I just hope that Apple would make this app more "compatible", so that things we do on the iPad could be transferred/synced to the Mac.

Yes, let's hope. Apple seems to be dragging the feet about syncing photo libraries, however. You cannot even sync two iPhoto libraries on the mac.

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Answer 4

Jul 13, 2014 8:44 AM in response to léonie

hey thanks, I was having the same problem with syncing albums back to my mac. I see how the tags make smart folders in iOS iPhoto but when I plug my iPad into my MacBook Pro and re sync, only changes I made on my macbook come onto my iPad not visa versa. I'm looking to get the tags that I "tag" on iPad abc to my Macbook so I can just creat the smart album on the MacBook. So if I tag "favorite" on my iPad I can go to my Macbook and create a smart album. Tell all pics that are tagged "favorite" to go to this album. But when I tag a pic on the ipad and sync the tag does not sync back to my Mac, only the other way around. There should be a easy way to edit photos on your iOS device and sync so that they all merge together. Am I missing something?

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