iCloud Photos Question

[cfs123]

Hello Forum,

My situation :

My iMac was almost 10 years old and my pics outgrew my HD so I moved all my pics to an external HD. The problem was that between my camera, phone, and my wife's phone, it became overwhelming getting all my pics onto the HD and organized.

I have been holding off on going to iCloud but with kids, work, etc, I'm tired of keeping up with it all. It's kind of getting in the way of life.

With this said, I have been preparing my photos in an effort to get ready to integrate to icloud into my life. I just completed loading and organizing my 30,000 photos onto my newer computer with larger HD.

Because iCloud Photos does not let two people share a main library, I am going to be the owner of the main library and my wife and I will photo share to get her photos onto the main library. This works fine for our own organizing of the main library but does not allow her access to the main one to see some old ohotos she loves. Therefre6, I will make a photo albums and share with her.

Since I never used iCloud Photos before, does this make sense? Will this work?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Superspeed500]

I have never used iCloud for photos, but I would recommend that you read this support document before you take a decission. Don't forget to check how much iCloud storage you have.

 

[MacManTexas56]

Hello Forum,

My situation :

My iMac was almost 10 years old and my pics outgrew my HD so I moved all my pics to an external HD. The problem was that between my camera, phone, and my wife's phone, it became overwhelming getting all my pics onto the HD and organized.

I have been holding off on going to iCloud but with kids, work, etc, I'm tired of keeping up with it all. It's kind of getting in the way of life.

With this said, I have been preparing my photos in an effort to get ready to integrate to icloud into my life. I just completed loading and organizing my 30,000 photos onto my newer computer with larger HD.

Because iCloud Photos does not let two people share a main library, I am going to be the owner of the main library and my wife and I will photo share to get her photos onto the main library. This works fine for our own organizing of the main library but does not allow her access to the main one to see some old ohotos she loves. Therefre6, I will make a photo albums and share with her.

Since I never used iCloud Photos before, does this make sense? Will this work?

Thanks in advance.

honestly....this is a pain in the butt!

I too was in the same position as you a few years ago. Decided to finally organize all photos and put them in the cloud so we could share with family and friends and be organized. Spent tons of time trying out several of the cloud options out there...onedrive, google drive, dropbox, iCloud etc. iCloud is a great option, if you are the only person wanting to view/share the photos. As you said in your OP, it's not easy to have your wife see the photos on her phone bc u would have to be signed in under that one iCloud ID. If you don't mind sharing 1 iCloud id and having it on multiple devices then it's not a problem. But my wife and i have different iCloud emails/accounts and share iTunes purchases. There is no real good way for her to access all of our photos if they are in iCloud. She would have to share her pictures to me, then i'd have to save them and put them in a folder. Then if she wanted to view photos she couldn't...would have to view them on the computer later. If she wanted to share photos of a trip..she'd have to wait to get home to use the computer or she would have to ask me to send her the link. It's a PAIN.

Dropbox on the other hand....the same account is logged in on both of our iphones/ipads and she can view/do everything that i can.

I really wanted iCloud to work, but it's simply more hassle than it's worth if you have multiple people wanting to view/add/share photos from the same library.

 

[cfs123]

She would have to share her pictures to me, then i'd have to save them and put them in a folder. Then if she wanted to view photos she couldn't...would have to view them on the computer later. If she wanted to share photos of a trip..she'd have to wait to get home to use the computer or she would have to ask me to send her the link.

We would also have our own id's because we may go from Androids to iPhones in the future. I have been rea ding that one can't have same I'd or messages gets messed up. I do have a few follow up questions if you don't mind. Is your library big? Two things pointed me to iCloud. The first is size. with the size of new SSDs, optimization on seems logical whike have a external HD backup of full resolution photos. How is dropbox on an external HD? Does it act up?

Also, I use Dropbox now and I wish Carousel was still available. With 30,000 pics, photos makes it easy for me to find what I am looking for. How is it for you?

 

[M. Gustave]

...Because iCloud Photos does not let two people share a main library, I am going to be the owner of the main library and my wife and I will photo share to get her photos onto the main library.

Yes, this is how I do it also, but I would just suggest that you add all her photos to the "main library" first at full resolution. She can add them to iCloud Drive from the photos app directly.

Once every photo is in your library, then going forward you share all the albums with her. I don't see this as a good enough reason to go to Dropbox or some other non-integrated solution. In most respects iCloud Photos is brilliant.

 

[cfs123]

She can add them to iCloud Drive from the photos app directly

Sorry. Can you explain why she would add them to her iCloud Drive?

Once every photo is in your library, then going forward you share all the albums with her.

When I share an album and if she has iCloud Photos on her phone, will the album take up local storage or optimized storage on her phone?

 

[M. Gustave]

Sorry. Can you explain why she would add them to her iCloud Drive?

As a way for you to grab them and add them to your iCloud Photo Library. Sorry, maybe you aren't aware that shared photos are not full resolution.

When I share an album and if she has iCloud Photos on her phone, will the album take up local storage or optimized storage on her phone?

I assume if you have 'Optimize Storage' turned on, it will work on shared photos as well.

 

[cfs123]

As a way for you to grab them and add them to your iCloud Photo Library. Sorry, maybe you aren't aware that shared photos are not full resolution.




I assume if you have 'Optimize Storage' turned on, it will work on shared photos as well.

Hope you don't mind me bombarding you with questions. I have been researching on my own but it's tough to find all the answers that relate to iCloud Photos. I was not aware that shared photos were not full resolution. Can one however save a shared photo in their main library?

Also, I'm wondering, I keep reading that iCloud photos is not a backup service but a sync service. This does not seem entirely true since one technically has a backup of their photos in the cloud. Correct. Of course it one should always have a local backup to be safe but that goes for all cloud services. Right? Am I missing something?

 

[M. Gustave]

Can one however save a shared photo in their main library?

Yes, you can.

Also, I'm wondering, I keep reading that iCloud photos is not a backup service but a sync service. This does not seem entirely true since one technically has a backup of their photos in the cloud. Correct. Of course it one should always have a local backup to be safe but that goes for all cloud services. Right? Am I missing something?

It's not a "backup" in the sense that it's not simply a cloud storage drive. Meaning, it's synced to the library on your iPhone, and if you modify or delete a photo on your iPhone, it's modified or deleted in your iCloud Photo Library simultaneously. And those changes are replicated on any other iDevice you log into. That's not how backup services work.

Yes, you should backup your photos in at least one other place. I have mine on a 128 GB sd card.

 

[MacManTexas56]

We would also have our own id's because we may go from Androids to iPhones in the future. I have been rea ding that one can't have same I'd or messages gets messed up. I do have a few follow up questions if you don't mind. Is your library big? Two things pointed me to iCloud. The first is size. with the size of new SSDs, optimization on seems logical whike have a external HD backup of full resolution photos. How is dropbox on an external HD? Does it act up?

Also, I use Dropbox now and I wish Carousel was still available. With 30,000 pics, photos makes it easy for me to find what I am looking for. How is it for you?

yes, having 1 account will have issues with iMessage and FaceTime etc. better to have 2 accounts. But having 2 accounts creates issues when trying to share 1 library.

our library is 150gb right now. I am very particular when it comes to photo organization...so i have many duplicates out there in different folders based on different things. If we go to Colorado on a trip...i break it down by locations within colorado during the trip...but also have folder for colorado in general that has all the photos as well. I can quickly go to pics if i am looking for a pic from Breckenridge in 2016.If we took a day trip to Vail....it goes in a Vail folder within Colorado etc. Again, that's just me being OCD bc i want to be able to find pics quickly.

I have used dropbox for about 6 months on my time capsule and i found it to be kinda annoying as each time i started my laptop it had to sync photos from before since the laptop wasn't on. Right now, I have a mac mini that stays on 24/7 that backs up all the time.

You'll also have to keep in mind, with iCloud, you'll either have to keep all photos on your phone or smaller thumbnails (optimize iPhone storage) that don't load instantly. Also, if you optimize your iPhone storage, it has the smaller thumbnails instead of the full photos. so if you want to upload to dropbox...it won't show that those photos are on your phone until you click each pic to basically "download" them to your phone. does that make sense?

Another thing I use is Google Photos. I have it on my mac mini as well as dropbox. Since google photos is free (up to a certain resolution), I have all dropbox photos sync to Google Photos. I do this just simply bc it's free. So i basically use that to quickly view photos as well and it's just another backup for me. Again, OCD i know lol

Hope this helps!

 

[Daranx]

You could theoretically share the same Apple ID for iCloud and sync your photos, but have different contact email addresses for iMessage and FaceTime - you can add more than 1 email address as your contact address under iMessage > Send & Receive, making sure your wife's email address is NOT on the list. Same goes for FaceTime.

You'll have to share other iCloud features such as Calendar (but you could create your own individual calendars), reminders, notes etc. Few other hurdles, but depends on your use-case - you might not even use these other features!

Obviously, sharing an iCloud account gives rise to privacy concerns as there are no real ways to prevent her from intercepting your iMessage message, FaceTime calls by simply adding your email address to her Send & Receive list, so tread carefully.

 

[cfs123]

You could theoretically share the same Apple ID for iCloud and sync your photos, but have different contact email addresses for iMessage and FaceTime - you can add more than 1 email address as your contact address under iMessage > Send & Receive, making sure your wife's email address is NOT on the list. Same goes for FaceTime.

You'll have to share other iCloud features such as Calendar (but you could create your own individual calendars), reminders, notes etc. Few other hurdles, but depends on your use-case - you might not even use these other features!

Obviously, sharing an iCloud account gives rise to privacy concerns as there are no real ways to prevent her from intercepting your iMessage message, FaceTime calls by simply adding your email address to her Send & Receive list, so tread carefully.

Thanks. This is helpful. I could care less what my partner sees on my phone, I just don't want things getting so mixed up that tech starts to get in the way again. Appreciate the help.

 

[cfs]

Yes, you should backup your photos in at least one other place. I have mine on a 128 GB sd card.

Hey Gustave. Sorry to bug you again. In a few weeks I will be getting ready to begin my process of going iCloud. I'm starting slow with getting my wife a 128gb iPad Air 2 (She will get a 128GB iPhone later in year). If we do not have a main computer at home for her photos as she is starting with a clean slate of zero photos and going full iCloud with optomization, how can I maintain a local backup? I was thinking that we just log onto her iCloud account each month and download new photos.will this work? You said you use a 128GB SD card. Is this what you do?

 

[M. Gustave]

Hey Gustave. Sorry to bug you again. In a few weeks I will be getting ready to begin my process of going iCloud. I'm starting slow with getting my wife a 128gb iPad Air 2 (She will get a 128GB iPhone later in year). If we do not have a main computer at home for her photos as she is starting with a clean slate of zero photos and going full iCloud with optomization, how can I maintain a local backup? I was thinking that we just log onto her iCloud account each month and download new photos.will this work? You said you use a 128GB SD card. Is this what you do?

You don't need a traditional computer at all. You can copy your photos from iPhone and iPad to a wireless sdcard reader like a FileHub. Look on Amazon.

But I was mostly referring to legacy photos that I had stored from pre-iPhone days. I trust iCloud as a storage solution.