User profile for user: Zathrak
Zathrak Author
User level: Level 1
23 points

Best way to manage multiple libraries?

Before we start offering third party suggestions like PowerPhotos, please bear with me for a moment.


I have somewhere around 55,000 photos/videos in my iCloud Library. While I would ideally like to keep everything in one library for the sake of only having to manage faces/places/locations/keywords etc in one library, I'm finding it to be a bit less ideal since it is taking up a good deal of storage space on my many iPads/iPhone which in turn slows things down especially when accessing the photos app on iOS.


Unless anyone knows of a way to prevent iOS Photos from taking over my storage (even on 128GB options it's too much), or a way to create a separate iCloud Library while having the faces, etc be available for both iCloud Library and the Non-iCloud Library, I'm out of ideas aside from having 2 Photos Libraries, one of which is for iCloud, the other for my aged media, and have to manage faces and all other metadata for both.


I can imagine now...having to build a routine just to periodically move stuff from Library A to Library B. What a nightmare. Anyhow, does anyone have any insight to any of this? Thanks in advance!

Posted on Apr 27, 2016 9:21 AM

Reply
15 replies
User profile for user: léonie
léonie
User level: Level 10
200,699 points

Apr 27, 2016 10:40 AM in response to Zathrak

I have somewhere around 55,000 photos/videos in my iCloud Library.

How are you using iCloud Photo Library? Are you using more than one Mac and using iCloud Photo Library to keep your Macs in sync? Or want you iCloud Photo Library to sync to your iOS devices?


I need iCloud Photo Library primarily to have the same Photos Library on all Macs, but 40000 photos turned out to be too much for my iPad. It is simply no fun, if all photos on the iPad are blurry, because they are optimized and need downloading. Since I did not want to reduce the iCloud Photo Library and have to sync the mac again manually, I now keep one large library in iCloud, but disabled iCloud Photo Library on the iPad. I sync selected albums from my large library to the iPad using iTunes, I ignore the blurry photos on the iPhone (it still uses iCloud Photo Library), but the four Macs have still one single Photos Library, synced with iCloud.

Actually, syncing selected albums to the iPad with iTunes Photo sync is still better than iCloud Photo Library, at least for my library. I do most of my organization with Smart Albums, and iCloud Photo Library does not sync smart albums to the iPhone and iPad. So all my smart albums are missing on the iPhone, also the Faces albums. iTunes on the other hand does sync all smart albums and the Faces albums, and all photos are stored in the full resolution. I can browse all photos immediately, even offline.


If you need iCloud Photo Library only to sync your favorite photos to your iPad or iPhone, but not to another Mac, I would indeed create a second library just for iCloud. There is one problem - only your system photo Library can sync with iCloud. So your iCloud Photo Library needs to contain all photos that you want to access from other applications.


A drastic method to have only a part of your library upload to iCloud Photo Library would be to have a mixed library of referenced and managed photos. Only photos stored inside your Photos Library will upload to iCloud Photo Library, not the photos referenced outside. But referenced photos require more work and are risky, because they are not well supported in Photos.

It is safer to move photos between two libraries, one for iCloud and one local library.

Reply
User profile for user: Zathrak
Zathrak Author
User level: Level 1
23 points

Apr 27, 2016 11:32 AM in response to léonie

Good question Leonie. Also, great to see you in the forums still after all of these years. The quick answer is both.


The project began when I needed to consolidate years of photo/video files that were strewn across multiple devices and hard drives. Consolidate, it did. Now, I have 7 copies of every images/video in that library so it will end up shrinking to about a minimum total of about 250GB after duplicates are removed but that will be a very long time from now lol. This is surely at least contributing to the issue but I'm not entirely sure that it will alleviate either issue (space on iOS devices or slow / unresponsive photos within other apps). The iCloud Library setup looks like this...


1TB iCloud Library

--> iMac (Keep Originals)

--> Macbook Pro (Optimize Storage)

--> iPad Pro, iPad 4, iPad Mini 2, iPad Mini, iPhone 6 (Optimize Storage)

--> Apple TV4, Apple Watch


My main two purposes for iCloud Library are:


A) auto-add new photos/videos to my main library on my iMac

B) Be able to edit that library (delete photos, create albums, add faces/keywords/locations etc) from my Macbook Pro or iOS devices.

I don't so much want or need access to 95% of my photo library on any of the other devices beyond the two Macs, but I keep it on them so that when I occasionally take screenshots from iPads or photos/videos from iPhone, it automatically gets added to the iCloud library and thus, my iMac. As for viewing, I'm really only interested in the latest bunch (think Photostream). I'm discovering that B apparently isn't an option as metadata isn't synced and is subsequently isn't available on my Macbook Pro or iOS devices (along with iOS interface restrictions). Your solution to use iTunes to sync that metadata is a great one! I might use that in the future should I look in to syncing specific albums.

It does sound like referenced photos is probably a bit riskier than a second library, though a second library would still be a nightmare. If only there was a way to selectively sync certain parts of iCloud Library to your iOS devices. I think the ideal solution for me would be to:

  • iMac: System library + iCloud, originals and all metadata (faces, etc) stored here.
  • Macbook Pro: Optimized for space. Modify contents and metadata of iCloud Library including metadata (faces, etc).
  • iPads: Only contribute to iCloud Photo Library, do not sync photos.
  • iPhone 6: Contribute to iCloud Photo Library but not sync 100% of the photos in that library to the iPhone which causes lag/freezing.

After seeing this, did you have any other thoughts or am I stuck with either having 2 libraries with 2 sets of metadata for everything (which I probably won't do, it's too unmanageable) or just have a gigantic iCloud Photos Library that will forever cost me $10/mo and will chew through every last GB of space on every iOS device that I will ever own?

Reply
User profile for user: léonie
léonie
User level: Level 10
200,699 points

Apr 27, 2016 12:04 PM in response to Zathrak

B) Be able to edit that library (delete photos, create albums, add faces/keywords/locations etc) from my Macbook Pro or iOS devices.

Photos on the iOS devices has currently no way at all to add metadata to photos. You cannot add titles, location, keywords, or faces on an iOS device. You can only edit the photos. But if a photos metadata the tags are synced to the iOS devices and you can use them in searches.



With two Macs to keep synced I'd use use iCloud Photo Library on the Macs to keep them synced, use My Photo Stream to download new photos from your iOS devices and either Shared albums or iTunes Photo Sync to upload selected albums to the iPad and iPhone.


With iCloud Photo Library on your Macs there is also one problem with Metadata: Faces albums do not sync between Macs either. iCloud is only syncing the searchable faces tags between Macs, but not the Faces thumbnails.

Luckily, it is quicker to label the faces on the other Mac because we can search for the tags and can c´quickly recreate the albums.

Reply
User profile for user: Zathrak
Zathrak Author
User level: Level 1
23 points

Apr 27, 2016 12:44 PM in response to léonie

léonie wrote:


Photos on the iOS devices has currently no way at all to add metadata to photos. You cannot add titles, location, keywords, or faces on an iOS device. You can only edit the photos. But if a photos metadata the tags are synced to the iOS devices and you can use them in searches.

OMG I had no idea I could search that metadata in iOS and have it return those photos! :-o Wow! Thank you for bringing that up!



léonie wrote:


With two Macs to keep synced I'd use use iCloud Photo Library on the Macs to keep them synced, use My Photo Stream to download new photos from your iOS devices and either Shared albums or iTunes Photo Sync to upload selected albums to the iPad and iPhone.


So that I understand correctly, am I reading that I can disable iCloud Library on my iOS devices but as long as I have Photostream enabled on my iOS devices, it will do the following?

  • Add the photos taken on those devices for permanent storage in my Photos Library
  • Show me the last 30 days worth of Photostreamed photos from each of those iOS devices on each of those iOS devices?


Only issue there: what happens to the videos I take on those devices? Since they don't upload to photostream, I guess I'm back to the initial issue of having to manually import stuff assuming I didn't have iCloud Library, right? If I could upload videos via Photostream in the same way as photos do and have it store to the OS X Photos app, I could do away with iCloud Photo Library. Of course, I'm sure Apple knows this and that's why I'm in the situation I'm in. ;-D

léonie wrote:

With iCloud Photo Library on your Macs there is also one problem with Metadata: Faces albums do not sync between Macs either. iCloud is only syncing the searchable faces tags between Macs, but not the Faces thumbnails.

Luckily, it is quicker to label the faces on the other Mac because we can search for the tags and can c´quickly recreate the albums.

So it sounds like there is no good way to edit metadata and have it sync from iMac to Macbook Pro and vice versa? I read an article once about a shady way to accomplish it but it seemed kind of risky.

Thanks again, Leonie!

Reply
User profile for user: léonie
léonie
User level: Level 10
200,699 points

Apr 27, 2016 12:54 PM in response to Zathrak

So it sounds like there is no good way to edit metadata and have it sync from iMac to Macbook Pro and vice versa? I read an article once about a shady way to accomplish it but it seemed kind of risky.

Most metadata will sync between your Macs, your keywords, titles, captions, places you assign, and even the names of the persons you assign a faces label to. It is just the exact position of that face in the photo that will not upload to icloud.

I am mostly tagging my photos on my MacBook Pro Retina, and and all edits and keywords, etc will sync to iCloud Photo Library and my imac and the other macs. On my iPad and iPhone I can search for the photos based on the faces names, the titles, the places, the keywords. Have you seen this document? https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204486 It explains what will sync between Macs.

.... 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


As to My Photo Stream:

So that I understand correctly, am I reading that I can disable iCloud Library on my iOS devices but as long as I have Photostream enabled on my iOS devices, it will do the following?

  • Add the photos taken on those devices for permanent storage in my Photos Library
  • Show me the last 30 days worth of Photostreamed photos from each of those iOS devices on each of those iOS devices?

Yes, you can use it for devices that do not use iCloud Photo Library as you described above.



Only issue there: what happens to the videos I take on those devices? Since they don't upload to photostream, I guess I'm back to the initial issue of having to manually import stuff assuming I didn't have iCloud Library, right?

For videoas and Live Photos connect the devices to USB to download them. Shared albums can transfer videos, but reduce the quality

Reply
User profile for user: Zathrak
Zathrak Author
User level: Level 1
23 points

Apr 27, 2016 1:10 PM in response to léonie

Wow, we've come so far and are so close in such a short period of time!


I hadn't seen the document you listed. Thank you for that and the easy to read list of what is synced. It seems like such a let down that it can do so many things but the last cog in the wheel (upload video via photostream) isn't able to be done, leaving us with having to plug in via USB and manually seek out any videos on the device while skipping around photos that are theoretically now in iCloud Library. What a terrible shame.


It kind of sounds like I'm back to the beginning with 2 libraries to manage and that I have to keep paying $10/mo for the rest of my life so that I can have photos/videos get added automatically to my Photos Library. Neither of those sound ideal. I guess I'll stick with 1 giant library that bogs down my iOS devices and takes my lunch money from me like a high school bully. Sad day for me.


I appreciate all of your insight on this Leonie! I'll mark this as answered but obviously it's far from solved haha. If you or anyone has anything else to add, please do! Thanks again!

Reply
User profile for user: léonie
léonie
User level: Level 10
200,699 points

May 16, 2016 7:52 AM in response to LarryHN

I'm running out of blushes , Larry. 😊

But I like to give the compliment back; you and OT and TD are great at isolating problems and getting quickly to the heart of a problem based on your long experience in these forums. Remote diagnosis of someones system, just by a game of question and answers is a big challenge. Finding the clues hidden in the screenshots and asking the right questions.

Reply

This thread has been closed by the system or the community team. You may vote for any posts you find helpful, or search the Community for additional answers.

Best way to manage multiple libraries?

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.
Learn more Sign up