No Photos on iPad from iCloud Photos

Question

No Photos on iPad from iCloud Photos

I am a new user of iCloud. I have uploaded a Photo album from my Mac to the iCloud (apparently, according to Photos on the Mac). I have enabled iCloud Photos on both my Mac and iPad, using the "Settings" directory. When I open Photos on the iPad, only the few photos that I have taken on the iPad are displayed. There are no photos from iCloud Photos displayed, nor any icon or command on screen that allows me to access the iCloud Photos from the iPad. How do I access them?? Photos "Help" is no help. I cannot find any advice Googling on the Internet.

When I upload photos from the Mac to iCloud, are the original .jpeg files still residing on the Mac? Reading the Apple Support Community comments, it appears that if I delete the album or photos from the iCloud, they are deleted from all devices. Is this so, and if so why? I do not plan to share my albums, but simply wish to be able to see them on my iPad. I have 30,000+ photos on my Mac, and do not wish to upload them all to the iCloud. I feel more comfortable having the photos reside on my Mac and backup storage, rather than on the iCloud. I simply do not trust the iCloud. Can I delete photos or albums from the iCloud without deleting them from my Mac, and if so how?

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

An Increasingly Frustrated Senior Citizen Apple User

FaceTime-OTHER, OS X Yosemite (10.10.5), FaceTime 1.1.1 (309)

Posted on Nov 18, 2015 9:36 PM

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Answer 1

Nov 19, 2015 5:06 AM in response to Westcoast Peter

I have uploaded a Photo album from my Mac to the iCloud

What exactly does that mean please? Ordinarily when you upload an album, It would suggest to me that you are loading a shared album, which will be found in a difference place (shared) in the photos app on your iPad.

When I upload photos from the Mac to iCloud, are the original .jpeg files still residing on the Mac?

That depends whether you have "optimised" enabled in your photos preferences, If you do then Ia lower resolution version is kept on your Mac and the original version is stored in the cloud.

it appears that if I delete the album or photos from the iCloud, they are deleted from all devices. Is this so, and if so why?

Yes that's correct, it is done that way so that you can maintain exactly the same set of photos on all of your devices.

I have 30,000+ photos on my Mac, and do not wish to upload them all to the iCloud. I feel more comfortable having the photos reside on my Mac and backup storage, rather than on the iCloud.

Then just use shared albums and not iCloud photo library.

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Answer 2

Nov 19, 2015 7:29 AM in response to Winston Churchill

Thank you Winston, for the prompt response.

I am still very confused.

In Photos on my Mac, the album "A" I believe I uploaded, is shown in the Photos toolbar under the heading "Shared". The album has 400+ photos in it. The same (I believe) album "A" is listed in the same toolbar under heading "Albums" in a sub-directory called "iPhotos Events" in Photos on my Mac. I have over 100 other albums under this sub-directory. Are these two albums "A" indeed one and the same, residing in the iCloud? How do I differentiate where the album photos are actually physically located? I have Photos version 1.0.1(215.65.0)

If album "A" is indeed now residing in the iCloud, and no longer on my Mac, can I download the 400+ photos back onto my Mac? If so, how, and since album "A" is already listed in the Mac "Albums" directory, how would I know if the download is successful? Could I then deactivate the iCloud link, and delete album "A" from the iCloud? Unfortunately, the subject album was just created, and I did not do a backup, prior to uploading the album into the iCloud. If I could download the photos from the iCloud back to the Mac, then I could do a backup of the album.

Since album "A" is under the heading "Shared" on my Mac, why can't I access the shared photos on my iPad? I have activated the iCloud links in both my Mac and iPad, in the Settings>iCloud, and Setting>Photos & Camera in the iPad. All I can see on the iPad, are the dozen photos residing in it. There are no icons, or headings observable that will link me to the shared photos in the iCloud. How can I view the shared photos on the iCloud in my iPad? I cannot find the version number of Photos in my iPad. The iPad OS version is 9.1 (13B143)

I think Apple needs to have a Help Section for confused Senior Citizens (sub-dummies). Photos "Help" has not addressed the issue I have encountered. I was under the belief that the iCloud was user-friendly and intuitively obvious, especially related to a simple task like viewing a single album on two devices with the same owner. Unfortunately, this has not been my experience.

A Continually Frustrated Senior Citizen Apple User

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Answer 3

Nov 19, 2015 9:23 AM in response to Westcoast Peter

In Photos on my Mac, the album "A" I believe I uploaded, is shown in the Photos toolbar under the heading "Shared". The album has 400+ photos in it. The same (I believe) album "A" is listed in the same toolbar under heading "Albums" in a sub-directory called "iPhotos Events" in Photos on my Mac. I have over 100 other albums under this sub-directory. Are these two albums "A" indeed one and the same, residing in the iCloud? How do I differentiate where the album photos are actually physically located? I have Photos version 1.0.1(215.65.0)

When you migrated from the old iPhoto app to Photos, all your old events were turned into albums (since Photos doesn't support events). It seems you have then used the contents of the album to create an identical 'shared' album. In the cloud these albums are kept in different places, the first 'events' album in iCloud Photos library, the second 'shared' album in Apples portion of iCloud (i.e. free storage)

Since album "A" is under the heading "Shared" on my Mac, why can't I access the shared photos on my iPad?

If you have sharing and iCloud photo library, you should be able to see both these albums in 'Shared' and 'Albums'

It seems like it may simply not be syncing for you as it should.

Please start by telling us your “iCloud Photo Library” and “My Photo Stream” settings on all of your devices. (Settings > Photos & Camera on your iOS device and Photos > Preferences > iCloud on your Mac)

Please also advise if there is any ongoing sync activity on any of your devices (Activity includes uploading, updating, downloading or preparing).

If you have activity in any of these places, how long has it been like this.

Do you have any referenced photos in your library (create a smart album if you aren't sure)

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Answer 4

Nov 19, 2015 7:26 PM in response to Winston Churchill

Hi Winston,

As requested, here are my settings on my Mac:

Note that I did not tick off the "iCloud Photo Library", as I did not want to upload all 30,000+ of my photos onto iCloud. It took several hours to upload the 400 photos I am referring to.

Here are the settings for my iPad:

and:

I do not have any "Referenced Photos", that I am aware of, especially in the subject album "A". Things seem to happen on my iPad and Mac, that I am not aware of, so something may be going on behind the scenes, without my knowledge.

I am not aware of any synching activity with my iPad that has precluded me from accessing the iCloud album on the iPad. Synching occurs, I believe, only when I plug the iPad via USB into my Mac to recharge the battery.

Regards,

The Same-Old Frustrated Senior Citizen

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Answer 5

Nov 19, 2015 7:29 PM in response to Westcoast Peter

Hi Winston,

Some how the image of my iPad settings was pasted twice. Here is my Mac settings:

As I stated earlier: Note that I did not tick off the "iCloud Photo Library", as I did not want to upload all 30,000+ of my photos onto iCloud. It took several hours to upload the 400 photos I am referring to.

Regards,

The Same Old Frustrated Senior Citizen

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Answer 6

Nov 20, 2015 1:38 AM in response to Westcoast Peter

OK since you don't have iCloud photo library enabled on the Mac, you can't expect to see Album A under "Albums", you should however see them under "Shared", are you saying that you don't.

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Answer 7

Nov 20, 2015 10:32 AM in response to Winston Churchill

Good morning Winston,

Thank you again for the response.

Yes, I can see the photos of subject album 'A' in both the Shared and Album directories on my Mac. Are both directories accessing the same filing source of the originals, i.e. on the iCloud? Or are copies of the *.jpg files still in my Mac? If the only copies of the photos are on the iCloud, is there any way to download the 400+ photos from the iCloud back onto the Mac? The subject 400 photos were scanned and digitized from old slides, and then were edited. It took a lot of time and effort on my part to do so, and I hope that I am able to retrieve them to the Mac so that I can back them up to my hard drive.

I cannot access the Shared album 'A' on my iPad. The red circled directory icon "Shared" you show circled above is not present in Photos on my iPad. The other two icons: 'Photos' and 'Albums' are present in Photos on my iPad, and only show photos resident on the iPad.

All I wish to do is to be able to show individual, specific albums from the Mac on to my iPad. Due to space limitations on iCloud storage, I had hoped to load an album, and then periodically replace the old album with a new one, while still keeping a hard copy of the original .jpg on my Mac and making sure all my photos are backed up on a hard drive. While reading the promotional literature about Photos and the iCloud, I assumed that this was a simple process. I had no idea that it would be so complicated to do such a simple task.

I Have one additional question: I have Apple TV so that I can show my photos on the larger screen of the TV. Unfortunately, the dozens of 'Slideshows' I have created in iPhoto and Photo cannot be shown directly from my Mac to the TV. Only Albums and Photos can be shown directly. There is a convoluted process for exporting and converting the Slideshow so that Apple TV can read it, which is difficult and confusing for a non-technical person. If photos/albums/slideshows/projects etc. are stored on the iCloud, are there any surprises and challenges in trying to simply show them on the Apple TV without having to go the steps of exporting and conversions?

Thank you.

The Same Old Frustrated Senior Citizen.

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Answer 8

Nov 23, 2015 2:28 AM in response to Westcoast Peter

Sorry it's been a while, I was away for the weekend.

Are both directories accessing the same filing source of the originals, i.e. on the iCloud? Or are copies of the *.jpg files still in my Mac?

In respect of the photo in your albums under the heading of iPhoto events, these are full resolution photos that reside on your Mac, they are the same photos that you can find in 'moments' and 'collections' views. In your case they are not in the cloud because you have chosen not to enable iCloud photo library, if you had chosen to enable iCloud photo library a full resolution copy would be kept in the cloud, in the 5 GB (or larger if you pay) that you get for iCloud.

In respect of the photo in your albums under the heading of shared albums, these are low resolution copies of the original photos and they also reside on your Mac, they are therefore a different photo to the one in the iPhoto albums. These photos also reside in the cloud, but not within your (5GB) of cloud space, so they don't reduce your cloud space available to you. (Actually if they weren't very high resolution photos to begin with they may not change if you see what I mean)

I cannot access the Shared album 'A' on my iPad. The red circled directory icon "Shared" you show circled above is not present in Photos on my iPad.

You don't appear to have sharing turned on on your iPad, the toggle switch for this setting is in the 'off' position.

All I wish to do is to be able to show individual, specific albums from the Mac on to my iPad. Due to space limitations on iCloud storage, I had hoped to load an album, and then periodically replace the old album with a new one, while still keeping a hard copy of the original .jpg on my Mac and making sure all my photos are backed up on a hard drive.

On that basis, you will probably be fine with shared photos, there are limits to what you can put into the cloud which I've listed below, but they probably won'y be an issue for you. Shared albums will do what you want and low resolution photos are more than good enough for an iPad screen, they were however designed for sharing with others, hence all the references to comments and the like which you can probably ignore.

Maximum combined number of photos and videos from all contributors per shared album, per hour: 1000

Maximum combined number of photos and videos from all contributors per shared album, per day: 10,000

These sharing limits are separate from the upload limits above. For example, in the same day you could upload 10,000 photos to My Photo Stream, then share those 10,000 photos or 10,000 other photos.Some additional limits for shared albums:

Maximum shared albums an owner can share: 100

Maximum shared albums a user can subscribe to: 100

Maximum subscribers per shared album: 100 (the number of subscribers on each shared album)

Maximum combined number of photos and videos from all contributors in any one shared album: 5000

Maximum number of comments per photo or video in a shared album: 200 (a comment can be either a like or a text entry)

Maximum characters per comment: 200

Maximum number of invites a shared album owner may send per day: 200

I Have one additional question: I have Apple TV....

The shared albums are a great way to watch slideshows on an Apple TV. This must be done from the photos app on the Apple TV though which requires an internet connection and can suffer if that connection is poor. Another way to watch photos on the Apple TV is from the 'Computers' app on the Apple TV directly from your computer. This doesn't use shared albums but rather the albums you have under the heading iPhoto events (and of course any new ones you make), it requires the computer to be on and home sharing set up on both the computer and the Apple TV.

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Answer 9

Nov 24, 2015 7:49 PM in response to Winston Churchill

Winston,

Yes, I am now able to view my photos from my Mac on the iPad. The information you provided was very helpful and informative. It's still a bit confusing what is going on behind the scenes, but I am happy that the end result is being able to see the shared albums.

Thanks again for your helpfulness, time and patience.

Regards,

A Not-so Frustrated Senior Citizen

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