How to transfer photos / notes / voice memos from one iCloud to another

[subaiku]

Hey guys, what I want to do is to merge two sets of photos on two different phones with two different iCloud accounts, keeping all the albums, favourites and edits. After googling, this is the solution I've found. Would appreciate it if someone can confirm this.

iPhone A is the target phone I want all photos merged into. It has over 20k photos. iPhone B has over 192k photos.

So the plan is:

Step 1. On iPhone A to set photos to 'Download and Keep Originals'. After photos are fully downloaded, switch off 'iCloud Photos'.
Step 2. Log out of iCloud account and log in again into iCloud of iPhone B, switch on 'iCloud Photos' again and turn on sync photos. This should download all the photos and merge them. At least I hope so!

Anybody can confirm this? 😃

 

[Mike Boreham]

That is my understanding as well and I have done it a while ago on Macs but not actually on iPhone.

My main concern about your plan is which Apple ID ends up with 192k+20K photos.

Your step 2 is done on Phone A but signing in with the Apple ID currently on Phone B, is this correct?

If so after step 2 the combined 212k library will be on phone A but Phone A will be signed in the Apple ID currently used by Phone B. I think. Is that OK?

 

[subaiku]

Yes

That is my understanding as well and I have done it a while ago on Macs but not actually on iPhone.

My main concern about your plan is which Apple ID ends up with 192k+20K photos.

Your step 2 is done on Phone A but signing in with the Apple ID currently on Phone B, is this correct?

If so after step 2 the combined 212k library will be on phone A but Phone A will be signed in the Apple ID currently used by Phone B. I think. Is that OK?

Yes! You are totally following correctly.. in the end I want all combined photos on iPhone A, and will be signed in with the Apple id of iPhone B.

Question, did all the albums also merged for you? And all the photos retained their favourite and edit status ?

 

[subaiku]

Oh also, I just logged into the Apple id of iPhone B and noticed the photos are default checked on ‘Optimise’ mode. Is this ok?

 

[Mike Boreham]

This post by Leonié (who is a deep expert on photos I completely trust) says keywords, albums, folders and edits are preserved by the iCPL uploading method.

Optimise on or off is your choice. No right or wrong. Optimise off will try to download full size copies to the phone. With 212k of photos I would be surprised if you have enough storage capacity. I have Optimise on for my 256GB phone and off for my iPad and MBA which are both 2TB. My full size iCPL is 587GB.

 

[subaiku]

This post by Leonié (who is a deep expert on photos I completely trust) says keywords, albums, folders and edits are preserved by the iCPL uploading method.

Optimise on or off is your choice. No right or wrong. Optimise off will try to download full size copies to the phone. With 212k of photos I would be surprised if you have enough storage capacity. I have Optimise on for my 256GB phone and off for my iPad and MBA which are both 2TB. My full size iCPL is 587GB.

Hey thanks for the link and all the input and assurances, much appreciated!

Photos are the most important thing to me on the phone so am happy that there’s a way to finally merge them.

Am one day into the merge and so far it looks like it’s only uploading the smaller 20k library up to iCloud, about 1/3 through. It hasn’t downloaded any from the larger 190k library yet. Looks like it’s going to take awhile, heheh.

 

[Mike Boreham]

Am one day into the merge and so far it looks like it’s only uploading the smaller 20k library up to iCloud, about 1/3 through. It hasn’t downloaded any from the larger 190k library yet. Looks like it’s going to take awhile, heheh.

Yes quite likely will take a while, and can sometimes seem not to be doing anything.

 

[subaiku]

Yes quite likely will take a while, and can sometimes seem not to be doing anything.

Hey Mike, got another syncing question for you.. today I wanted to check other things that were supposed
to sync/merge into my new iphone.

Specifically voice memos. I opened up the app and the first thing I get is a notification screen asking me if I wanted to enable sync. Of course I hit yes. But then I noticed it only synced the voice memos from my other phone. And all the currents ones have gone missing! Had 38 on this phone and 91 on the other, so total should be 129. But I only have the 91 now.. what the heck? 😓

 

[Mike Boreham]

Hey Mike, got another syncing question for you.. today I wanted to check other things that were supposed
to sync/merge into my new iphone.

Specifically voice memos. I opened up the app and the first thing I get is a notification screen asking me if I wanted to enable sync. Of course I hit yes. But then I noticed it only synced the voice memos from my other phone. And all the currents ones have gone missing! Had 38 on this phone and 91 on the other, so total should be 129. But I only have the 91 now.. what the heck? 😓

Wasn't your old phone signed in to the iCloud account on iPhone A? and you are now using different iCloud account from Phone B? Is that what the 38 and 129 are about? Afraid nothing is "supposed to sync/merge into my new phone" if two different Apple IDs are involved. Works well when new phone is on same Apple ID as old phone.

If so afraid I have no idea about merging voice memos from two different iCloud accounts, other than exporting them them by clicking the three dots in a circle next to the recording name, and importing on the other.

EDIT just found this post on ASC which sounds promising though I have no experience. That post may be talking about doing it on a Mac rather than iPhone but the same may happen.

 

[subaiku]

Wasn't your old phone signed in to the iCloud account on iPhone A? and you are now using different iCloud account from Phone B? Is that what the 38 and 129 are about? Afraid nothing is "supposed to sync/merge into my new phone" if two different Apple IDs are involved. Works well when new phone is on same Apple ID as old phone.

If so afraid I have no idea about merging voice memos from two different iCloud accounts, other than exporting them them by clicking the three dots in a circle next to the recording name, and importing on the other.

EDIT just found this post on ASC which sounds promising though I have no experience. That post may be talking about doing it on a Mac rather than iPhone but the same may happen.

Thanks for that link! I’ve gone through it. The process it recommends is basically what I’ve done.

Unfortunately what it says about data like notes and voice memos getting merged isn’t true. I did make sure my
phone had a local copy of notes and voice memos. But when I logged into the account I wanted all data to be merged into, it simply replaced notes and voice with the logged in account’s rather than a merge like what’s happened with photos.

Luckily I still have those missing notes/voice memos on the old phone. Will have to manually transfer them as you suggested. Only thing that is annoying is that voice memos doesn’t have date metadata I think, so after being transfered to the new phone it doesn’t appear in chronological order. The date will be the date it’s transfered instead of the original recorded date. Ah well..

 

[Mike Boreham]

Thanks for that link! I’ve gone through it. The process it recommends is basically what I’ve done.

Unfortunately what it says about data like notes and voice memos getting merged isn’t true. I did make sure my
phone had a local copy of notes and voice memos. But when I logged into the account I wanted all data to be merged into, it simply replaced notes and voice with the logged in account’s rather than a merge like what’s happened with photos.

Luckily I still have those missing notes/voice memos on the old phone. Will have to manually transfer them as you suggested. Only thing that is annoying is that voice memos doesn’t have date metadata I think, so after being transfered to the new phone it doesn’t appear in chronological order. The date will be the date it’s transfered instead of the original recorded date. Ah well..

Interesting and disappointing. Did you actually get asked about saving a local copy when signing out, which seems to be a crucial step?

 

[subaiku]

Interesting and disappointing. Did you actually get asked about saving a local copy when signing out, which seems to be a crucial step?

Honestly, I don't remember being given that option for Notes and Voice memos. I would definitely have done so. In hindsight, a good tip would've been to keep iPhone B unconnected to preserve it's unsynced state just in case.

Anyways, I encountered something else re: the merging of Photos. After 4 days it looked like it had completely downloaded all photos. I say it looks like it's downloaded everything because both phones are now synced showing the same amount of photos/videos.

BUT, there are photos missing. iPhone A had 192,326 photos. iPhone B had 22,681. Total should be 215,007. But currently there's 214,859. That's 148 missing!

Same thing with videos, there are 47 missing. With this amount of photos/videos, I have no idea if there's any way to check which is missing. This is crazy. 😓

 

[Mike Boreham]

Honestly, I don't remember being given that option for Notes and Voice memos. I would definitely have done so. In hindsight, a good tip would've been to keep iPhone B unconnected to preserve it's unsynced state just in case.

Anyways, I encountered something else re: the merging of Photos. After 4 days it looked like it had completely downloaded all photos. I say it looks like it's downloaded everything because both phones are now synced showing the same amount of photos/videos.

BUT, there are photos missing. iPhone A had 192,326 photos. iPhone B had 22,681. Total should be 215,007. But currently there's 214,859. That's 148 missing!

Same thing with videos, there are 47 missing. With this amount of photos/videos, I have no idea if there's any way to check which is missing. This is crazy. 😓

Sometimes I have seen a category in the sidebar with title something like "unable to sync". Anything there?

Also Photos sync can take a long time and say it has finished when it hasn't. The missing ones may yet appear.

Not sure how duplicates get handled in this type of merge. Could there be duplicates between the phones A and B ? There may be a sidebar heading for Duplicates.

You could also look and see what is showing on iCloud.com.

 

[subaiku]

Sometimes I have seen a category in the sidebar with title something like "unable to sync". Anything there?

Also Photos sync can take a long time and say it has finished when it hasn't. The missing ones may yet appear.

Not sure how duplicates get handled in this type of merge. Could there be duplicates between the phones A and B ? There may be a sidebar heading for Duplicates.

You could also look and see what is showing on iCloud.com.

Yeah, I did check on iCloud.com. It shows the same number as on the phones. That's why I think it has completed the sync.

Where is this sidebar? Do you mean in the main album view?

There is a duplicate album. It has 640 photos in it so the numbers don't tally. Also there's no way there could have been the same duplicates between phone A and B as I used them to take different photos.


Also, re: voice memos, I remember when I opened the app for the first time after signing in it still had the 31 memos that were originally on the phone. After it had asked me if I wanted to sync with iCloud (or something along those lines) I literally saw the number of voice memos being replaced with the 91 that were on the other phone.

With Notes, it didn't ask, it straight up just replaced with the notes from the other phone. Not good Apple, not good at all.

 

[Mike Boreham]

Yeah, I did check on iCloud.com. It shows the same number as on the phones. That's why I think it has completed the sync.

Where is this sidebar? Do you mean in the main album view?

There is a duplicate album. It has 640 photos in it so the numbers don't tally. Also there's no way there could have been the same duplicates between phone A and B as I used them to take different photos.


Also, re: voice memos, I remember when I opened the app for the first time after signing in it still had the 31 memos that were originally on the phone. After it had asked me if I wanted to sync with iCloud (or something along those lines) I literally saw the number of voice memos being replaced with the 91 that were on the other phone.

With Notes, it didn't ask, it straight up just replaced with the notes from the other phone. Not good Apple, not good at all.

Yes Albums window. I was thinking Mac not iPhone when I said sidebar.

As you have no doubt discovered the whole subject of merging Apple IDs is something which has been constantly requested by users and AFAIK is not supported by Apple. The merging of Photos libs does seem pretty well documented in forums and articles and I don't why yours seems to have missing photos. As I said at the start, my experience is merging on Macs not phones but I would have expected it to work, and it basically has for you apart from the missing ones.

As for the other iCloud data I think the fact that you weren't asked if you wanted to keep a copy of Notes and Voice memos may be significant. Can you export/import/share to work around?

I see by googling merge voice memos there is an app on the App Store called "Merge recorder and audio notes".

Googling same for Notes throws up a lot of links which you have presumably tried.

Third party Apps like iMazing may offer solutions.

 

[subaiku]

Hey Mike, just wanted to say thanks for all the advice so far.

Yeah, wish Apple would make it really clear that syncing would replace Notes and Voice Memos and not merge. Basically, what I've found online is that even if you had Notes and Voice locally stored on your phone, if you log into a different iCloud account, it will just replace those with what is on iCloud.

I am just going to manually transfer the lost ones as I still have them on the other phone. Luckily it's not too many. I imagine it would be a nightmare for those who have hundreds.

Here are some links of similar cases to mine.
Lost voice memos

Voice Memos Lost After Sync - Apple Community

discussions.apple.com

Lost Notes
https://www.reddit.com/r/applehelp/comments/131e6rd

How do I recover iCloud notes that were overridden by the notes on my 2nd device?

Answer (1 of 3): If you have accidentally overridden your iCloud notes with the notes on your second device, don't panic! There are several steps you can take to recover your lost notes. Step 1: Check Your iCloud Settings First, make sure that your iCloud settings are configured correctly. Chec...

www.quora.com

My notes were overwritten - Apple Community

discussions.apple.com

The missing photos and videos are still troubling me though. Will update if I find a solution to this. Out of curiosity how many photos did you have to deal with when you merged? I suspect maybe this issue might have to do with the huge number of photos I had.

 

[Mike Boreham]

The missing photos and videos are still troubling me though. Will update if I find a solution to this. Out of curiosity how many photos did you have to deal with when you merged? I suspect maybe this issue might have to do with the huge number of photos I had.

Yes disappointing about missing photos. I think I had about 70k when I merged a few years ago, less than you but a significant number. Do you have backups such that you could try again perhaps using PowerPhotos method? No that won’t work as you are only using phones I think. Any chance you could rerun this on a Mac?

 

[subaiku]

Yes disappointing about missing photos. I think I had about 70k when I merged a few years ago, less than you but a significant number. Do you have backups such that you could try again perhaps using PowerPhotos method? No that won’t work as you are only using phones I think. Any chance you could rerun this on a Mac?

Ahhh I see. Unfortunately I can’t rerun this as I don’t have the original state of photos on iPhone B anymore, they’ve been merged.

That’s why I’d recommend to anyone trying a photo merge to keep both sets of photos in its original state in some way, just to be safe.