Shared Photo Stream in Finder

Question

Hidos030 Author

Level 1

5 points

Shared Photo Stream in Finder

Good day anyone,

I just restored my MacBook and I would like to have my Shared Photostream at my disposal at the sidebar in the Finder.

I have seen several tutorials on how to do this with your regular Photostream, however.

One of these steps was that I had to type the following in: Finder -> Go -> Go to folder...

~/Library/Application Support/iLifeAssetManagement/assets/sub/

By navigating back to:

~/Library/Application Support/iLifeAssetManagement/assets/

And navigating forward to:

~/Library/Application Support/iLifeAssetManagement/assets/sub-shared

I realized that I was actually in the Shared Photostreams folder.

After following the steps for putting the Photostreams in the sidebar (but I used my Shared Photostream), I was not seeing all my photos in the sidebar. I have 609 (546 in one stream, 63 in another) photos and only 494 were actually showing in the finder. To be sure I got back to:

~/Library/Application Support/iLifeAssetManagement/assets/sub-shared

and looked in any of the 609 folders in 'sub-shared' and found indeed 609 photos and not 494.

I looked for:

Image = 494

jpg/JPG/jpeg/JPEG = 480 results

png/PNG = 14 results

My question is, how can I get all the 609, if not possible, the 546 photos in my sidebar? Is it a problem with iPhoto?

I really need this functionality!

Points for the correct answer ofcourse.

iPhone 5s, iOS 7.0.4

Posted on Apr 1, 2014 8:02 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Yer_Man

Level 10

162,314 points

Apr 2, 2014 8:10 AM in response to Hidos030

Do the shared photostreams work for the people you are sharing to? If so, then there is no problem with iPhoto.

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Answer 2

Hidos030 Author

Level 1

5 points

Apr 2, 2014 8:26 AM in response to Yer_Man

Well no, everything works fine in iPhoto and in the Finder when I browse the /sub-shared folder, but the problem is that a lot of the photos do not appear when I want to search in that particular folder.

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Answer 3

Milkbomb

Level 1

5 points

Apr 2, 2014 8:26 AM in response to Hidos030

I saw the same thing - fewer photos in the Smart Folder search results than in iPhoto or on my devices. The photos are there - Finder is just not finding them, ironically.

This can be proven by manually opening photos one at a time. As you do this, the number found by the smart folder increases by one. Crazy.

You can get around all this nonsense by using Hazel to copy the photos to another location, as described here:

http://istherefood.com/photostream-management-with-hazel

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Answer 4

léonie

Level 10

194,761 points

Apr 2, 2014 8:36 AM in response to Hidos030

~/Library/Application Support/iLifeAssetManagement/assets

This folder in your user library is the buffer for syncing with iCloud. It is not necessarily exactly what you are seeing in the Photo Streams in iPhoto or Aperture. Most of the times, the folders "sub" and "sub-shared" will match perfectly the contents of the streams you are seeing in iPhoto or Aperture, but depending on the state of the syncing there may be discrepencies.

So, if you drag the folder sub-shared to your Finder's sidebar, you will have to live with differences due to the state of the syncing with icloud.

Why do you need to access the Photo Stream from the Finder Sidebar? Any application, that will open a File Chooser dialog and supports the media Browser, can access the Photo Stream from the Media Section in the file chooser window, for example, in Preview I can access the Photo Stream like this:

Just select Media > Photos > Aperture > iCloud

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Answer 5

Hidos030 Author

Level 1

5 points

Apr 2, 2014 8:51 AM in response to léonie

I see what you mean, the reason why I would like to have the Photostream in my sidebar is because the convenience is there in opposition to your proposal. This is because I use the Shared Photostream a lot on my iPhone and iPad and those are, really, the only pictures I find important. Having it updated whenever I have a new photo in the stream is what I actually need. If you know any alternatives or a fix to my problem I'd like to hear.

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Answer 6

Hidos030 Author

Level 1

5 points

Apr 2, 2014 8:53 AM in response to Milkbomb

I have read your reply and tried Hazel. The other way you mentioned, the one where I had to open every folder is not working for me, can you therefore explain that process to me?

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Answer 7

Milkbomb

Level 1

5 points

Apr 2, 2014 8:56 AM in response to Hidos030

If you find and open a photo (in Preview) in the 'sub' photostream folder that is not showing in the smart folder search results, then it suddenly is added to the visible photos in the smart folder.

This isn't a workaround, merely an observation.

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Answer 8

Hidos030 Author

Level 1

5 points

Apr 2, 2014 9:04 AM in response to Milkbomb

I was successful in making that observation as well a minute ago, I think in this way I will be able to make every picture visible. My question is, if I add a photo to one of my Shared Photostreams, will I have to redo the process for that particular picture or will it be added right away?

Regards.

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