Two iCloud accounts syncing to 1 MacBook

Hi - since you are both using separate Apple IDs everything should work fine. iCloud storage and iCloud Photo Library are tied to an individual Apple ID and not any specific device. Make sure you have enough iCloud storage to contain your entire photo library.

Here is some info you should read:

iCloud Photo Library - Apple Support

iCloud: iCloud Photo Library overview

iCloud Storage - Official Apple Support

For your specific questions:

1) Yes. You can choose to have the originals downloaded on the Mac or use Optimize Storage to keep the originals in iCloud and have it manage your Mac storage for you when you are low on space.

2) All your photos from all your devices will sync/upload to iCloud Photo Library once you turn it on for each device. If you choose Optimize Storage on your iPhone then it will manage the photo storage for you. You'll see the same photos on all devices through the Photos apps and also on iCloud.com

3) Yes. See #1. Keep in mind that you should always have a separate backup of your photos (something like a Time Machine backup of your Mac or a 3rd party service like Backblaze). iCloud Photo Library is more of a syncing service and is not meant to be a backup.

Hope this helps.

You no longer have a Camera Roll or Photo Stream when you use iCloud Photo Library, so you would not have anything to import. You can download originals to your Mac as one of the options of iCloud Photo Library on the Mac, but again, you would have to both be using the same iCloud ID if you wanted to both have access to the same library. Sharing an iCloud account comes with its own issues, and Apple recommends that each individual have their own iCloud ID.

And as I indicated, although iCloud Photo Library manages your storage on the iOS devices, you are still looking at potential limitations, since all of your iCloud Photo Library photos will be on your device - optimized or not.

If you want to use the import functionality, you cannot have iCloud Photo Library turned on on the iOS device. With iCloud Photo Library, everything goes to iCloud, and iCloud shares everything with any device or computer that is signed into the same iCloud account with iCloud Photo Library turned on.

These support articles may help:

iCloud Photo Library FAQ - Apple Support

iCloud Photo Library Help - Apple Support

Cheers,

GB

Hello tomkimsey,

Apple definitely wants you to have all of your photos in iCloud Photo Library. Rather than being a "backup" or "archive", it should be considered your one and only database of photos. Any devices that you connect to your iCloud Photo Library will have some version of that database downloaded. It may be "optimized" but it will be optimized only on the device. Your iCloud Photo Library will always have the full resolution versions.

You will continue to have to have separate iCloud accounts, each with its own iCloud Photo Library. To be pedantic about it, the cost would be $2/month for the two accounts. The accounts will be separate, but you can use Family Sharing.

If you have any older devices that don't have enough storage for the full iCloud Photo Library, you can still use Photo Stream just on that device instead of iCloud Photo Library.

There are some risks to having everything in the cloud. If your credit card expires or gets stolen and cancelled, you will have to make sure to update your iCloud account. According to Apple's documentation on downgrades (iCloud storage upgrades and downgrades - Apple Support), it looks like your data would be safe. But you never know, plans change, terms of service get updated, mistakes happen. Did I mention Time Machine yet?

Thanks a lot for these replies! Has anybody tried this (also pasted directly below): Photographs from 3 different iPhones into one iPhoto library?

... and did it work? I'm wondering if this could be the answer!

Thanks!

"The only way to do this is to share your iPhoto library across multiple users on your mac.

Read this Apple support article for instructions on how to do so:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1198?viewlocale=en_US

You, your wife and daughter will all need to user separate user account on your Mac, then each person can sync their iOS device with iPhoto through Photo Stream as normal. As long as the library is shared as detailed in the link above photos imported from each Photo Stream are accessible for every user.

My wife and I have been using iPhoto like this for years and have also been using it with Photo Stream since it launched.

It's important you follow all instructions exactly or sharing will not work: ensure the drive or partition is shared, permissions are ignored and the every user is set to Read and Write not just Read. Also always make sure you close iPhoto before switching users otherwise the library will be locked. All of this is explained in the link above.

The only glitch I've noticed is when using automatic importing of Photo Stream photos into the iPhoto library, if you have deleted images from Photo Stream on your iOS device they still get imported into an event in iPhoto, even though they are NOT in the Photo Stream. To get round this either don't delete anything from Photo Stream on your iOS device (as you'll just have to delete it again in iPhoto OR turn of automatic importing of Photo Stream photos in iPhoto. To manually import you click on the Photo Stream option in the left menu bar, select all photos, right click and select import.

To be honest the glitch above might not be linked to shared iPhoto libraries and may just be a Photo Stream glitch in general but as I have always used a shared iPhoto library with Photo Stream I have no way of knowing, all I know is no one else seems to have the problem and shared libraries seems to be a feature not many people know about.

Hope this helps?"

You cannot use two different Apple/iCloud accounts on the Mac itself. You can set up iCloud Library for each of your iCloud accounts, but they are separate libraries. Some other answers to your questions:

tomkimsey wrote:

My wife and I each have our own iCloud account. We periodically download (sync) our photos into Photos on the same MacBook Pro. This has worked great for us for a while. With two different Apple/iCloud accounts, this is the way you want to continue to go. You can only have one iCloud account signed into the Mac under a User Account, and iCloud Photo Library is by Apple/iCloud account, so each one would be a separate Library in iCloud. Importing your photos on the other hand, allows you to import from any device or camera into the same Photos library on the Mac. So, since you are using two different accounts, importing is the best option.

However, we would like to take advantage of iCloud, for backup purposes. iCloud Photo Library is not an archival service, it is a sharing service, so it should not be considered a backup for your photos. Once iCloud Photo Library is turned on, deleting a photo from any device or computer (or from iCloud.com) deletes that photo from the library, so it is gone across the board.

Also, my wife frequently runs out of space taking pictures/videos of the kids. She would greatly benefit from the "optimize" setting. iCloud Photo Library Optimization can manage the storage on your device to a degree, however, the way it does that is to keep full res versions only for those photos which have been most recently used, edited, or viewed. But remember, all photos in the iCloud Photo Library will be downloaded to the device, so as it runs out of space, more and more of the photos in the library on the device will be reduced to thumbnail versions. But if storage is a problem, and if there are tons of photos in the library, there is a limit as to how many of those photos (even in thumbnail version) can be kept on the phone and still be optimizing storage.

My questions:

1. Can we continue to use our MacBook Pro as the "central hub" for all our pictures? Whether that is through connecting through a USB and syncing (like before), iCloud syncing, or otherwise. Yes, if you continue to import your photos, and do not turn on iCloud Photo Library on the Mac, then you can continue as you have been doing up to this point.

2. If we go the iCloud route, what are the implications for our phones? Will we suddenly see hundreds of old pics show up on our phones? You would see all of the photos that were in your iCloud Photo Library on the devices, but if each device is signed into a different iCloud account, then each device will have a different Library.

3. Our goal is to have iCloud backups of all pics, to save space on our phones using the optimize feature, and to continue to have all photos from both accounts saved (in full resolution) on our MacBook Pro. Does this sound like a possibility? Again, iCloud is not a backup service at all. So, using iCloud Photo Library would not accomplish that requirement. You would need to use an archival cloud service for that like Dropbox or Flikr. iCloud allows you to share all photos to all devices, but it also means that all devices have access to that library, and can edit, delete, or add photos at will. And, again, different Apple/iCloud accounts, different iCloud Photo Libraries.

Thank you!

Best of luck!

GB

This is a useful discussion, but I don't think we have a clear answer.

Like tomkinsey, I also want to consolidate my photo library with my wife's on our MacBook and we have separate Apple IDs. I don't have the iCloud photo library (and I'm not really looking to installing) but I like the fact that I don't need to manually import my pictures anymore on our Mac with Photos and that this is automatically done (through Photostream, I guess?). Ideally, I would want my wife's pictures to also automatically import.

I've read a lot of threads on the topic, however it seems that this is not possible. Or, am I missing something?

Thanks!

No it is not possibel

1 - the only possible way to mostly merge (everything except projects) is using iCloud Photo Library

2 - unless you are both using the same Apple ID you are never going to merge anything as each account is independent of the other account

3 - MyPhotoStream does not merge anything - it sends every new photo to the other devices logged into the same account - it does not send edits or deletions like iCloud Photo Library does

LN

Hi,

My husband and I have two separate Apple IDs, and two separate Macs.

We still manually sync our Music, Photos, and other media.

We have both sync'd with both my iTunes Library (which we use exclusively for Photos), and with his iTunes Library (which is where we sync with Music).

On our iTunes Profiles for Photos on his iTunes account, we have the "Sync Photos" option turned off completely (we have other options turned on as we individually require).

On our iTunes Profiles for Music on my iTunes account, we have everything except Photos turned off for syncing.

We do have to import his photos to the Photos Library on my Mac (not a big deal for me, really), and I also have to import my videos to Photos since Photo Stream does not include videos. I have the option in the Photos App to import my Photo Stream, but, again, that does not include videos.

So, it can be done if you are willing to do the importing.

The whole syncing part is really for being able to share that entire library between you. To be honest, although I originally created various albums, and diligently sync'd them to our iPhones, as Photos progressed, we really don't sync any more at all.

We can share photos using iCloud Photo Stream, we both have access to the Mac to look at all current photos there, the Memories albums that the iOS creates are enjoyable to both of us, and save or share the ones we really like. So, bottom line, we have our entire library stored (and regularly backed up to Time Machine), and it is there for each of us to do with it what we will....

Cheers,

GB

Cheers,

GB