Gavza

Q: Faces in Photos not correctly synchronized across Macs

I have a collection of about 20,000 photos that I imported from iPhoto to Photos on my Mac Desktop computer.  It correctly imported all the Faces.  However, when I then shared my Photos library via iCloud to my laptop (opening Photos for the first time on my laptop, and telling it to use iCloud), the Faces were only kind of transferred.  That is to say, if I search for the Faces, then it finds them.  However, if when looked in the Faces album, it had no Faces in there, and suggested I start adding faces.  I did that, but it doesn't merge the previously annotated faces with the newly annotated ones.  Indeed, if I look at a photo that has faces that I annotated previously, telling it to show Face names, it shows no faces or face names.  Yet, if I search for the people in that photo that I annotated previously, then it finds the photo.  My conclusion is that the Faces feature, and specifically the sharing of Faces with iCloud is completely broken, and not written with people who want their photo libraries duplicated across multiple computers (for safety's sake, as well as I just happen to have more than one computer).  If anyone has any insight into how to make this work correctly, I'd appreciate knowing it!

Mac Pro, OS X El Capitan (10.11.4)

Posted on Apr 19, 2016 8:18 AM

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Q: Faces in Photos not correctly synchronized across Macs

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  • by léonie,Helpful

    léonie léonie Apr 19, 2016 12:56 PM in response to Gavza
    Level 10 (105,736 points)
    iLife
    Apr 19, 2016 12:56 PM in response to Gavza

    That is unfortunately how it is supposed to be. The faces albums do not sync in iCloud, only the searchable faces tags, see this support document:

    Use Photos and iCloud Photo Library on multiple Mac computers - Apple Support

     

     

    , these items appear in the Photos app on all of your Macs:

    • All original photos and videos
    • All folders and albums
    • Smart Albums
    • Keywords
    • Searchable keywords based on Faces tiles
    • Key photo selections

    These items are available only on the Mac where you created them:

    • Books, cards, and calendars
    • Slideshows
    • Keyword shortcuts
    • Unused keywords
    • Last imported album (this album contains photos you most recently imported on a specific Mac)
    • Faces tiles and Faces data
  • by Gavza,

    Gavza Gavza Apr 19, 2016 12:58 PM in response to léonie
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Apr 19, 2016 12:58 PM in response to léonie

    Thanks - it boggles my mind that this is how it's supposed to work, but you are correct. Apple designed it to be stupid, and it works as they say. 

  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie Apr 19, 2016 11:52 PM in response to Gavza
    Level 10 (105,736 points)
    iLife
    Apr 19, 2016 11:52 PM in response to Gavza

    i am more optimistic.  The first version of Photos for Mac was much more limited and has already been improved after one year.  iCloud Photo Library currently supports unfortunately only what can be accessed at www.icloud.com and on iPhones or iPads, but that will hopefully change too.  At least smart albums do sync between macs, even if they are not visible on iPhones. If the faces albums never would sync between Macs it would be really ridiculous, since labelling  faces is such a lot of work, and I am really tired on having to label the same set of faces over and over again on four different macs!