I have reorganised all my Photo albums. Now most of them have vanished from Photo on any device, including iCloud. The individual images have not been lost, but most Albums have. What can I do to recover the Albums? Thanks.
MacBook Pro (15-inch, Late 2016), macOS Sierra (10.12.2)
Are you using iCloud Photo Library on your Mac and did you just enable iCloud Photo Library on an iPad or iPhone?
Whenever I enable iCloud Photo Library on my iPhone or iPad, most of my albums, smart albums, and folders vanish from my Macs. This bug is persistent. It just happened again on my Macs after I enabled iCloud Photo Library again on my iPhone. If that should be the problem, you can restore the albums by storing the Photos Library from your Time Machine backup. But this will result in uploading the library again to iCloud.
Are you using iCloud Photo Library on your Mac and did you just enable iCloud Photo Library on an iPad or iPhone?
Whenever I enable iCloud Photo Library on my iPhone or iPad, most of my albums, smart albums, and folders vanish from my Macs. This bug is persistent. It just happened again on my Macs after I enabled iCloud Photo Library again on my iPhone. If that should be the problem, you can restore the albums by storing the Photos Library from your Time Machine backup. But this will result in uploading the library again to iCloud.
Thanks.
1) macOS Sierra. However, the problem appears on all my devices (iPhone 7, an older iPhone 6, both running iOS 10.2) and on iCloud.
2) Yes, on all of them.
3) My old iPhoto Events where arranged under a folder called "iPhoto Events". I simply dragged them out of such folder and put them individually under the default Album section that usually appears on the left sidebar.
Only the most recent albums have remained. All of them were under "iPhoto Events".
Please note that I have not lost the individual pictures, but "only" the Albums.
Thanks.
It has been reported here several times that dragging albums out of the iPhoto Events folder deleted them. Tis seems to be a bug.
But additionally, enabling iCloud Photo Library on an iOS device after enabling it on a Mac also caused albums to be lost.
Thank you very much indeed.
If I do as you say, do I lose the latest photos that I have uploaded, after my latest Time Machine backup?
Regardless of this, what procedure do you suggest to follow: first turn on iCloud photo library on all devices and only then restore the backed-up photo library, or the other way round?
If I do as you say, do I lose the latest photos that I have uploaded, after my latest Time Machine backup?
You would have to export all newer photos from your Photos Library to a folder (the photos you made after the last Time Machine backup), so you can add them back, if they should be missing after. you restore the library from Time Machine. The newer photos should download again from iCloud, since they are already in iCloud, but better be safe than sorry.
Regardless of this, what procedure do you suggest to follow: first turn on iCloud photo library on all devices and only then restore the backed-up photo library, or the other way round?
First enable iCloud Photo Library on all iOS devices you want to use with iCloud (iPhones, iPads, iPods), and only then restore the library on your Mac and enable iCloud Photo Library on the Mac.
This way the restored albums survived syncing when I tried this.
Thanks a million, léonie!
Will try tonight and will let you know how it goes.
One last question: suppose I buy a new device and want to turn on iCloud Photo Library on it. What should I do, in order not to experience the same problem again?
What should I do, in order not to experience the same problem again?
Right now there is not much you can do to prevent this. Make sure you have a current, working backup of your Mac library, if your albums are important for you.
I got into the habit of adding a keyword with the name of the album to all photos in an album, so I can recreate my albums easily as smart albums based on keywords, if need be.
Hi léonie,
I tried the above described method, but I have a problem in retrieving the old Photo library from Time Machine. This could be because I used a pretty old and slow iMac.
As I have bought the latest MacBook Pro, is it OK to replace the native Photo library with the one on the external hard drive from the old iMac?
Also, should I have iCloud Photo Library off on my Mac, prior to replacing the library, and only once it has been replaced could I turn it on again, or should it remain on all the time?
Thanks a lot.
If you have no photos on your new MBP then just replace the Photos library - As to ICPL makes no difference - I personally prefer to do it in steps so I would not turn it on until you have finished transferring your library and tested it - then make it the system library and log into iCloud and turn ICPL on
LN
Thanks, LarryHN,
I do have photos, but they are the ones from the iCloud Photo Library. Only a few new ones that are not important and stored elsewhere anyway. So I assume I can replace the libraries, right?
I would make a TimeMachine backup, just to be on the safe side.
Thanks.
Ouch, doesn't work. I did that, but then ICPL replaces everything with its own settings, i.e., yes, it syncs the new photos, but it also deletes the albums. So basically I just have to accept what ICPL wants.
*** @Apple: ISSUE NOT SOLVED ***
What version of Photos are you running?
Do you have the iCloud Photo Library enabled on your Mac and mobile devices?
What do you mean by reorganizing the albums?
I should add that I have enabled my iCloud Photo Library on one of the two iPhones after I have dragged the events from the mentioned folder into the album one.
Super helpful, thank you so very much!
Yes it is fine - and when you turn ICPL on with the new library they will sync to Photos
LN
Photo Albums disappear
