All things Shared Photo Library

[swedewithbeard]

Hi!

Trying to look through the old posts but I cannot seem to get a clear grasp of if I'm doing something wrong or if there are other ways of solving some missing features in the new shared library. Perhaps a new thread to gather the discussion around shared library and how it's working out for folks...

I have a library of around 30k photos. Kids and family over the last 20 years or so. So far the only way of handling it has been that I keep the "master" library on my iCloud-accound and then I occasionally add to it from my wife's iPhone (like twice a year). The downside being that she does not have access to the complete photo library on her devices. I was super excited to hear about Shared Library in Ventura and turned it on yesterday.

Now I am really confused. For me all it does is make the photos available in the shared section, but there is no way of orginazing the photos in the shared library? Also, geo-info does not seem to sync automatically to my wife (futher limiting the possibility to find photos in our large library), only after opening a photo the geo-info becomes available and searchable.. Time and date are the only way of organizing it seems...

Here are a few things I wonder if someone else out there has any insight to or tips on workarounds:

• I cannot move albums to the shared library
• If I create new albums in the shared library, it still only resides in "my" shared library, i.e. does not show up on the devices of other whom I share the library with.
• Location info. It's there if I look at a specific photo. After opening it (in iOS e.g.) it shows up. If I search for Prague in this case 3 photos show up in the search. If I open 5 more then the next search how 8 photos. Like it's not automatically indexing all meta data?
• Favorites show up in the shared library...?? My favorites...so those are apparently shared? However, they do not seem to update. The initial favorites from my phone show up on my wife's phone in the shared library but if I add or remove either from her or my phone is does not reflect on the other...
• Image caption seems "local". If i swipe down in iOS and add a caption to an image it does not sync across to others sharing the library. I can have different captions for the same photo in the shared library on different devices.

I was hoping to share a photo library where we could both help organize it and also have the same album structure etc on all devices.

It seems like a beta product, can it really be like this or have I gotten something backwards??

 

[Mike Boreham]

I am in the same situation and there is no way of sharing the organisation ....big mistake. each user has to create their own organisation. I have submitted feedback.

The solution is Lightroom Cloudy which works exactly like you and I and many other want, and has many other advantages, but costs £9.98 per month. I was hoping to come back to Apple with the new Shared Library.

 

[swedewithbeard]

I am in the same situation and there is no way of sharing the organisation ....big mistake. each user has to create their own organisation. I have submitted feedback.

The solution is Lightroom Cloudy which works exactly like you and I and many other want, and has many other advantages, but costs £9.98 per month. I was hoping to come back to Apple with the new Shared Library.

Adobe Lightroom Cloud? I use Lightroom for my pro photography but Lightroom Classic. Does Lightroom Cloud work well with a large library of like 80gb and it is easy to share bewteen devices straight from the phone?

I am disappointed to say the least. Have been waiting for a long time for a solution from Apple but somehow they do not seem to get it... This and also multiple users on iPad OS, two things needed desperately :-(..

 

[Mike Boreham]

Adobe Lightroom Cloud? I use Lightroom for my pro photography but Lightroom Classic. Does Lightroom Cloud work well with a large library of like 80gb and it is easy to share bewteen devices straight from the phone?

Yes Lightroom Cloudy works brilliantly. Our Lightroom Cloudy library is 600GB/80k pics. It sync automatically between all devices signed in to the same Adobe account. Yes you can set it to auto import from Camera Roll so yours and wife's photos go straight to LR.

There are ways of syncing Cloudy and Classic, but my strong advice is not to try. Adobe themselves do not advise it. It is full of booby traps, and the forums are full of people who have fallen into them. Do not turn on sync in Classic.

 

[GlenK]

I haven't started working with Photo Library yet but saved your post. Looks like it may be somewhat of a pain!!

 

[tvdsm]

Hi!

Trying to look through the old posts but I cannot seem to get a clear grasp of if I'm doing something wrong or if there are other ways of solving some missing features in the new shared library. Perhaps a new thread to gather the discussion around shared library and how it's working out for folks...

I have a library of around 30k photos. Kids and family over the last 20 years or so. So far the only way of handling it has been that I keep the "master" library on my iCloud-accound and then I occasionally add to it from my wife's iPhone (like twice a year). The downside being that she does not have access to the complete photo library on her devices. I was super excited to hear about Shared Library in Ventura and turned it on yesterday.

Now I am really confused. For me all it does is make the photos available in the shared section, but there is no way of orginazing the photos in the shared library? Also, geo-info does not seem to sync automatically to my wife (futher limiting the possibility to find photos in our large library), only after opening a photo the geo-info becomes available and searchable.. Time and date are the only way of organizing it seems...

Here are a few things I wonder if someone else out there has any insight to or tips on workarounds:

• I cannot move albums to the shared library
• If I create new albums in the shared library, it still only resides in "my" shared library, i.e. does not show up on the devices of other whom I share the library with.
• Location info. It's there if I look at a specific photo. After opening it (in iOS e.g.) it shows up. If I search for Prague in this case 3 photos show up in the search. If I open 5 more then the next search how 8 photos. Like it's not automatically indexing all meta data?
• Favorites show up in the shared library...?? My favorites...so those are apparently shared? However, they do not seem to update. The initial favorites from my phone show up on my wife's phone in the shared library but if I add or remove either from her or my phone is does not reflect on the other...
• Image caption seems "local". If i swipe down in iOS and add a caption to an image it does not sync across to others sharing the library. I can have different captions for the same photo in the shared library on different devices.

I was hoping to share a photo library where we could both help organize it and also have the same album structure etc on all devices.

It seems like a beta product, can it really be like this or have I gotten something backwards??

I'm in the same situation, I have around 60k photos with hundreds of folders & albums. I got in touch with apple support on this. The first 2 support guys told me that also folders/albums are synced, however the 3rd one proposed me to do the test together. It's clear that the folder/album structure is not synced to the other participants of the shared library. Finally he found it somewhere in their internal docs. And as you mention, it's even not possible to select folders/albums for sharing to the shared library. Unbelievable apple did not inplement this, as that's exactly the goal of a shared library. Now it's totally useless and absolutely joke. Also for the apple support guy it was absolutely strange that it was syncing. The only thing you can do is send the remark to apple feedback.

 

[tvdsm]

I guess in IOS 16.3 beta it's also not implemented? Anyone has an idea?

 

[sunapple]

I'm in the same situation, I have around 60k photos with hundreds of folders & albums. I got in touch with apple support on this. The first 2 support guys told me that also folders/albums are synced, however the 3rd one proposed me to do the test together. It's clear that the folder/album structure is not synced to the other participants of the shared library. Finally he found it somewhere in their internal docs. And as you mention, it's even not possible to select folders/albums for sharing to the shared library. Unbelievable apple did not inplement this, as that's exactly the goal of a shared library. Now it's totally useless and absolutely joke. Also for the apple support guy it was absolutely strange that it was syncing. The only thing you can do is send the remark to apple feedback.

I just found out I could not share my albums. Or at least, it seems that if you do, another person will not see them and will just get a 'stock' list of photos.

Seems to me after some digging that the intended use are the default curated collections by the app itself, collections of faces, and the regular view based on date.

I'll give it a try as there is no other way to share pictures.

 

[tvdsm]

Any changes in behaviour in iOS17? Particularly the album/folder syncing to a Shared Library?