Shared albums won't show up on new Photos on Mac

With the new upgrade to Photos, I can no longer see the shared albums that I have with my friends and family. The albums are still visible on my iPhone and iPad, but not on my Mac. Where are they? Is it requiring me to sign up for iCloud storage in order to get to my shared albums??

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Yosemite (10.10.3)

Posted on May 9, 2015 8:15 PM

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48 replies

Jul 1, 2015 6:39 AM in response to hang yong

This also seems to have fixed my iCloud Photos sync issue. My library had been stuck in the "updating" state for a few weeks now. Following these steps not only fixed my issues with the "Shared" folder being missing (and an inability to share any photos to established iCloud Photo Streams), but my library also has actually started to sync with iCloud Photos again! Thanks so much!!

Jul 23, 2015 8:18 AM in response to BTOBIASSON

NOTE: In Lion, Mountain Lion, Mavericks and Yosemite the Home/Library folder is now invisible. To make it permanently visible enter the following in the Terminal application window: chflags nohidden ~/Library and press the Return key - 10.7: Un-hide the User Library folder.


For Mavericks and Yosemite you cango to your Home folder and use the View ➙ Show View Options menu to bring up this window:

User uploaded file

Aug 19, 2015 3:08 PM in response to mwbaker210

Unchecking the system settings boxes in Photo settings then deleting the 2 folders and rechecking the boxes worked for me, after a few minutes lag time until the albums started showing up again, but I will mention that the problem started after the library decided it was no longer the System Photo Library for some reason (it had been). Only that library can access iCloud. I clicked the button in Photos preferences to make it the system library again, but apparently that alone wasn't enough to get it connected to the cloud again.

Oct 4, 2015 7:21 PM in response to mwbaker210

hey all, i am having a similar problem. I just decided to start using shared albums...i turned it on and tried adding some photos to a new shared folder that I made on my macbook. the issue is they do not show up...photos seems to be copying them/uploading them. But then nothing ever comes up. I tried a few times. At one point a few random pictures out of the ones I tried adding did show up, but the rest did not and I cannot get anymore to show up. I have tried rebuilding. I have already tried deleting the files in containers in my library. Nothing is fixing this problem...i dont understand what is wrong.... 😟

Nov 12, 2015 2:45 PM in response to hang yong

Guys,


If you are still facing this issue after rebuilding, try this:


1. Close Photos
2. Go to System Preferences, iCloud, Photos and disable “My photo Stream” and “iCloud Photo Sharing”
3. Go to folder /Users/YourUser/Library/Containers/com.apple.cloudphotosd/Data/Library/Applicat ion Support/com.apple.cloudphotosd/services
4. Delete com.apple.photo.icloud.myphotostream and com.apple.photo.icloud.sharedstreams folders
5. Enable “My photo Stream” and “iCloud Photo Sharing” again.
6. Start Photos. After a while, the shared photos will start coming.


Thank you very much, Hang Yong! Great sleuthing..

I had the same problem but just went through the process of switching over to Photos now on El Capitan, and I saw some differences in the folders located in Containers, likely due either to changes with El Cap or Photos v2.


Specifically, neither the com.apple.photo.icloud.myphotostream nor the com.apple.photo.icloud.sharedstreams folders could be found, so throwing caution to the wind and in the mood to delete folders anyways, I took a stab and moved com.apple.cloudphotosd, com.apple.CloudPhotosConfiguration, and com.apple.ICPPhotoStreamLibraryService to the Trash (didn't empty it initially, in case this really messed things up).


Otherwise following Hang Yong's directions, I started up Photos again and... I still could not see my existing shared folders. And then, after a few minutes, they popped up, and then, very slowly, they repopulated with the photos existing in those iCloud Photo Sharing albums.


Hope that helps anyone now going through that process on El Capitan.

Jun 4, 2016 3:35 PM in response to mwbaker210

Hello,

I was having a similar problem. People I sent invites to view Shared photos got the links, My shared photos showed the name but none of the photos would show up.

One of the things that I missed and didn't see dscussed in the replies was that you have to tell photos by clucking on the buttont "Use as System Photo Library". I earlier misread that button as to think it was going to select a library located on the macbook pro's internal hard drive. (I'm currently an external hd as the main photo library.

By default, that button is unselected. It's located at Photos>Photo Preferences>General. And then in the iCloud button at the top, iCloud Photo Sharing should be clicked.

Hope that helps.

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Shared albums won't show up on new Photos on Mac

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