merging iCloud photo libraries

Question

merging iCloud photo libraries

All my devices are on current operating systems as of this writing (1.12.18)

I just recently turned on iCloud Photo Library on my iPhone, iPad & MacBook- these 3 devices now share a common iCloud Library of 9,000 photos. Today, I've just converted my iMac's iPhoto library to Photos on my iMac (that's 40,000 photos!)- but NOT using iCloud Photo Library yet.

I've decided that I don't want my small devices to deal with a relationship to a library of 50,000 photos, so my plan is: [1] Turn OFF iCloud Photo Library on my iPhone, iPad & MacBook; [2] turn ON iCloud Photo Library on my 40,000-picture iMac. I will be satisfied to have iCloud-shared albums be the only photos I can access on my iPhone, iPad & MacBook.

Now my questions:

1) HOW can I get the current 9,000-photo library added into the 40,000-photo library.

2) if I leave My Photo Stream turned ON on all devices (including iMac), will my recently-taken photos from my phone appear on the iMac's library as I would expect it should?

iMac, macOS High Sierra (10.13.2), and iOS 11.2

Posted on Jan 12, 2018 6:29 PM

Reply

Answer 1

léonie

Level 10

200,651 points

Jan 13, 2018 10:22 AM in response to Jeff.Buffalo.Grove

so my plan is: [1] Turn OFF iCloud Photo Library on my iPhone, iPad & MacBook; [2] turn ON iCloud Photo Library on my 40,000-picture iMac. I will be satisfied to have iCloud-shared albums be the only photos I can access on my iPhone, iPad & MacBook.

If you turn off iCloud Photo Library on your small devices, the photos will remain in iCloud.

Just do not use the “Disable and delete.” option when turning off iCloud Photo Library on your device. That will delete all photos from iCloud.

If you enable iCloud Photo Library on your iMac, the Photos Library will upload to iCloud and be merged with the existing library in iCloud, as long as you are using the same Apple ID for iCloud on your iMac as you used on your other devices.

Reply

Answer 2

léonie

Level 10

200,651 points

Jan 13, 2018 10:46 AM in response to Jeff.Buffalo.Grove

What if there exist duplicates for a photo–I’ll call them A1 & A2– and perhaps somewhere back in time, A2 [only] was used in adding content to an album.

When Photos is uploading Photos Libraries from multiple devices to iCloud Photos Library, iCloud will check for duplicate versions and resolve conflicts. If the duplicates are exact duplicates - identical files, only one of them will be kept in iCloud. But the albums referring to the duplicate files should remain complete.

If I run an app like Duplicate Annihilator, I have this question...

I would wait with running duplicate detectors until the upload is complete and iCloud has dealt with duplicate photos. Many duplicates may have vanished already after the upload.

I have not worked with Duplicate annihilator thoroughly. if you did not yet purchase a duplicate detector, consider to get Power Photos. It can do more than find duplicates and is a useful second browser fr your library. None of the safe duplicate removers that I know will warn you about albums. You could tag your photos in albums with a keyword, so you can see, if a photo is used in an album in the Info panel, before you delete it.

Reply

Answer 3

Jan 13, 2018 10:26 AM in response to Jeff.Buffalo.Grove

I'm in the process of uploading all those 40,000 photos from my iMac Photos Library to iCloud Photo Library (it seems like it may take days....).

I'm betting that many of the 9,000 photos that went up from my iPhone, etc are going to be duplicates of the "System Library". If I run an app like Duplicate Annihilator, I have this question...

What if there exist duplicates for a photo–I’ll call them A1 & A2– and perhaps somewhere back in time, A2 [only] was used in adding content to an album.

If DA selects & marks A2 as the duplicate, before I trash it, will I get a warning of some sort that cautions me that I’ll be losing that photo from my album?

Reply