Photos family sharing album limitations

Yes, each of those bullet points appears to be accurate, with one exception.

I would argue that the use of "but in effect a copy" in the third point should be "since it is a copy" instead.

Things you may also want to consider:

• Shared albums are not using the paid cloud storage - iCloud Photo Sharing is free and does not count against the free 5GB or paid iCloud storage.
• The resolution of photos and videos in the shared albums is limited. You can only share size reduced previews of the photos and videos. It is not suitable to transfer high resolution originals iCloud Photo Sharing - Apple Support).

"When shared, photos taken with standard point-and-shoot cameras, SLR cameras, or iOS devices have up to 2048 pixels on the long edge. Panoramic photos can be up to 5400 pixels wide.

iCloud Photo Sharing supports HEVC, MP4, and QuickTime video file types, and H.264 and MPEG-4 Video file formats. Videos can be up to five minutes in length and are delivered at up to 720p resolution. You can even share GIFs that are 100MB or smaller."

I do not use Family Sharing, so I cannot test it. When the Family Shared album has been first introduced, many users found it very intrusive, because they could not opt out of having it automatically created in their library. I do not know, if it is still so. If yes, I would refrain from using it at all, because it would be inconsiderate to force all family members to have to download all family photos to their Mac, without being able to opt out.

That would be covered in his points 2-5 (no photo editing, storage duplication when copied to get around it, other omitted functionality, no auto upload).

The "Family" shared album shares all of the deficits of other shared streams (now mislabeled "albums") compared to user albums.

I do use Family Sharing, but I don't have anything important in our shared "Family" album, so I can test it.

It is not now as intrusive as it allegedly once was. (I didn't do much testing with it previously, so I can neither confirm nor deny the reports about the initial release.)

The devices belonging to members of our Family Sharing account did gain a new "Family" shared album. It was empty until I added a few test pictures.

My wife's iPhone had no trouble unsubscribing from the automatically created "Family" album. That also removed it from her iPad (and her MacBook, I assume). Her AppleID still showed as a subscriber of the album when viewed on my devices (probably because I'm the organizer of the family sharing account), but with an "X" rather than a checkmark. I'm given the option to remove her as a subscriber to the album or to re-send the invitation. If I remove her as a subscriber, I can re-invite her. I can rename the shared family album, and the change propagates to her devices. She gets activity notifications if I add photos to it while she's subscribed.

All in all, pretty much like any other shared album.

i do not use Family sharing but the documentation states that you can set up a shared photo album to share within the family group

Your family can also share a photo album and a family calendar, and even help locate each others’ missing devices.

iCloud - Family Sharing - Apple

LN

That's true, Larry. Rich Owen (the OP) mentioned that in his first bullet point.

"shared family album is exactly the same as a standard shared album setup for all family members (no special functionality)"

And how does that not meet the OP's new needs which it was posted in response to?

Hopefully we may see the missing functionality noted (for sharing photos within a family) added at some point - without having to resort to sharing an Apple ID.

LN

have a nice day

LN

Thanks a lot, markwmsn! That is good to know, that the family shared album is no longer compulsory when using family sharing.