My photo albums showing on wife’s iPhone suddenly

[C7 POWER]

My photo albums are now showing on my wife’s phone and nothing online nor in my settings show why.

I did do family sharing with her so she can access the Apple TV app without us paying 2 separate monthly fees, but nothing online nor either phone is set up in photos for family sharing nor in the family share permission.

Now some of her albums are missing and replaced with mine.

Also under shared albums, both show the option to SET UP so it’s definitely not set up on either device.

How can I stop having my albums flood her phones album and hopefully stop replacing my stuff with hers.

 

[FreakinEurekan]

Sounds like she's signed into your Apple ID instead of her own.

 

[C7 POWER]

Sounds like she's signed into your Apple ID instead of her own.

Nope, she’s in hers. She doesn’t have my sign in info and hers is definitely logged into her Apple ID. It’s just so odd.

 

[ManuCH]

This is really odd. Does she see all your albums? Or only a subset? What about photos not in any album?

And you're 100% sure the "shared library" feature is not set up in any way?

 

[C7 POWER]

So odd

 

[C7 POWER]

This is really odd. Does she see all your albums? Or only a subset? What about photos not in any album?

And you're 100% sure the "shared library" feature is not set up in any way?

100% sure she’s not logged in under me, and 100% our sharing photos feature is not on and is still only showing the option to set it up. Oddly it’s not all albums nor all photos, just certain albums. crazy

 

[ManuCH]

100% sure she’s not logged in under me, and 100% our sharing photos feature is not on and is still only showing the option to set it up. Oddly it’s not all albums nor all photos, just certain albums. crazy

I've truly never seen anything like that. If what you are saying is true, and your wife didn't just copy your pictures and create albums (maybe you shared stuff with her manually and she imported it to her own library?), one more test: what happens if she deletes some pictures? Do they disappear from your library too?

Also when she swipes up to show photo details, does it show the same filename, location and device like on your copy of the photos?

Maybe it's worth calling Apple Support about this one, although I have my doubts they will be helpful unless you are persistent and manage to get escalated to engineering.

 

[ManuCH]

Wait, another idea: could it simply be the iMessage integration? By default, if you send her pictures over iMessage, they will also show up in her photo gallery. It's the "shared with you" feature. Settings -> Apps -> Messages -> Shared with you.

 

[C7 POWER]

Wait, another idea: could it simply be the iMessage integration? By default, if you send her pictures over iMessage, they will also show up in her photo gallery. It's the "shared with you" feature. Settings -> Apps -> Messages -> Shared with you.

Sadly no, these are literally whole albums which are titled the same and match mine identically. They are ones I’ve never shared. Still trying to figure it out. More upset because she’s now missing some of hers which were replaced with these.

 

[ManuCH]

Sadly no, these are literally whole albums which are titled the same and match mine identically. They are ones I’ve never shared. Still trying to figure it out. More upset because she’s now missing some of hers which were replaced with these.

Are you guys using iCloud Photos at all, or do you keep your photos locally? Did any of you sync the phone with your laptop or anything like that?

What if you look at the metadata of your photos in both albums, what do they look like? Maybe you can share some screenshots.

 

[SebCohen]

This is not an admission of anything, but I’d hate if my parents got my hidden NSFW folder pics when showing photos from their latest holiday to friends……because they’d have now clue what was happening and my mother would never believe my father and everyone would be very unfriendly towards each other for a while.

Ad notam: I’m an adult, some would say I’m already old (I know what baud is and have enjoyed its usage) who lives on his own. I just piggy back on their 2TB iCloud storage….

 

[SebCohen]

Are you guys using iCloud Photos at all, or do you keep your photos locally? Did any of you sync the phone with your laptop or anything like that?

What if you look at the metadata of your photos in both albums, what do they look like? Maybe you can share some screenshots.

I use iCloud ONLY for temporary automatic backup of my iPhone it gets stolen.

I keep my pictures on my Windows computer under my own folder structure. I just simply can’t stand how Photos does its own behind the curtains organisation. And I copy over photos each month at minimum.

I usually then do a yearly or at minimum a bi-yearly purge of iCloud and start from scratch. I find disorganisation seems to compound within Photos/iCloud. (I’m responsible for my parents stuff).

For cloud backup I use JottaCloud. MUCH faster, cross platform.

 

[ManuCH]

I use iCloud ONLY for temporary automatic backup of my iPhone it gets stolen.

I keep my pictures on my Windows computer under my own folder structure. I just simply can’t stand how Photos does its own behind the curtains organisation. And I copy over photos each month at minimum.

I usually then do a yearly or at minimum a bi-yearly purge of iCloud and start from scratch. I find disorganisation seems to compound within Photos/iCloud. (I’m responsible for my parents stuff).

For cloud backup I use JottaCloud. MUCH faster, cross platform.

I would go crazy with that method, but to each their own.

 

[SebCohen]

I would go crazy with that method, but to each their own.

Weeeeeell, perhaps it’s the other way round. I do it because I’m crazy¿ 🤪

It’s not as hard as it sounds actually, albeit a bit obsessive photographer disorder.

I have this structure:

Images/
Years/
Month/
Year_Month_Date - Device - Event Type

So iPhone is : 2024_11_25 - iP15P - July

My mirrorless will be : 2024_11_20 - FH2 - Street Photography night


That way I’m device agnostic as it’s a naming convention that’s respected by all operating systems. Folders will always be sorted correctly by dates, even if exit gets corrupted (has happened more than once, less nowadays). I can just copy the entire Images folder to an external device for a complete backup. Visually it’s a breeze searching through just my folders to quickly find stuff. I also don’t have to go into each folder to see what’s there, description is enough to trigger my tra…memory of that wedding. And I can use any DAM software as well.

Most important, I avoid the MESS that is inside the iPhoto folder on your Mac. I’ve helped 3 people moving to other OSs and I’m not doing THAT again for free.

An added bonus now is because of ransomware, as I usually keep old HDDs with the exact same structure that I won’t/don’t use anymore. So in case I ever (God forbid) get that horrid experience, I have clean drives that hasn’t been connected to my computer for some time that at least has some of my photos.

I also do automatic intervalled backups to a DAS drive (but this can also copy over ransomware), but this is mostly to avoid user error (me).

I then have two external drives (A & B) which I do a complete fresh backup to every…3-4 months. One drive is at home (A), this gets swapped after a new backup with the second (B) drive that’s at a family member. This is to mitigate fire, flood or theft.

I do a cloud backup for cross device usability.

I should be fine.


(I have about……3TB that I need to backup. Digitals going back to 1999 and scans back 20 years+ from that)

 

[Zazoh]

What is odd, and non sensical, is that photos don’t get replaced when sharing. You definitely need to talk to Apple. This seems more like someone tried to do something, restore backup, temporarily borrow Apple ID or something like that than system glitch.

 

[bigjnyc]

This is not an admission of anything, but I’d hate if my parents got my hidden NSFW folder pics when showing photos from their latest holiday to friends……because they’d have now clue what was happening and my mother would never believe my father and everyone would be very unfriendly towards each other for a while.

Ad notam: I’m an adult, some would say I’m already old (I know what baud is and have enjoyed its usage) who lives on his own. I just piggy back on their 2TB iCloud storage….

"Hi neighbor let me show you some pictures of my flowers..... Theres a lilac, theres a gardenia, theres a picture of my son's penis.... Oh my god!!!"

 

[C7 POWER]

What is odd, and non sensical, is that photos don’t get replaced when sharing. You definitely need to talk to Apple. This seems more like someone tried to do something, restore backup, temporarily borrow Apple ID or something like that than system glitch.

I can say 100% my wife wouldnt have done any of that, she has me do all that stuff to her phone and we do not even know each others Apple ID's (Not for any reason other than I have no need to log into hers or vice versa) so the whole situation is odd and only happened once I did the Family Sharing for her to get access to the Apple TV Account.

 

[iStorm]

Also under shared albums, both show the option to SET UP so it’s definitely not set up on either device.

Did you mean "shared albums" or "shared library" here? These are two different things, so just wanted to make sure we're all on the same page.

I know it was mentioned earlier and that the "sharing photos feature is not on" (again, are you referring to albums or library), but it really does sound like you're using a "shared library"...and that your wife is viewing the shared library instead of her personal library (or both of them). If she taps her profile picture in the upper-right corner in the Photos app, does she have the option to switch libraries and see her albums again?

How to use iCloud Shared Photo Library - Apple Support

iCloud Shared Photo Library lets you share photos and videos seamlessly with up to five other people, so everyone can collaborate on the collection and enjoy more complete memories. Learn how to set up and use a Shared Library.

support.apple.com

If you are indeed not using a "shared library", then this is really bizarre. It does remind me of an older thread where turning on Family Sharing supposedly synced passwords across devices (https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...two-family-members-devices-wtf-apple.2279595/). Maybe something similar is happening here with Photos.

 

[C7 POWER]

Did you mean "shared albums" or "shared library" here? These are two different things, so just wanted to make sure we're all on the same page.

I know it was mentioned earlier and that the "sharing photos feature is not on" (again, are you referring to albums or library), but it really does sound like you're using a "shared library"...and that your wife is viewing the shared library instead of her personal library (or both of them). If she taps her profile picture in the upper-right corner in the Photos app, does she have the option to switch libraries and see her albums again?

View attachment 2456436

How to use iCloud Shared Photo Library - Apple Support

iCloud Shared Photo Library lets you share photos and videos seamlessly with up to five other people, so everyone can collaborate on the collection and enjoy more complete memories. Learn how to set up and use a Shared Library.

support.apple.com

If you are indeed not using a "shared library", then this is really bizarre. It does remind me of an older thread where turning on Family Sharing supposedly synced passwords across devices (https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...two-family-members-devices-wtf-apple.2279595/). Maybe something similar is happening here with Photos.

I will check!! Great idea

 

[C7 POWER]

Did you mean "shared albums" or "shared library" here? These are two different things, so just wanted to make sure we're all on the same page.

I know it was mentioned earlier and that the "sharing photos feature is not on" (again, are you referring to albums or library), but it really does sound like you're using a "shared library"...and that your wife is viewing the shared library instead of her personal library (or both of them). If she taps her profile picture in the upper-right corner in the Photos app, does she have the option to switch libraries and see her albums again?

View attachment 2456436

How to use iCloud Shared Photo Library - Apple Support

iCloud Shared Photo Library lets you share photos and videos seamlessly with up to five other people, so everyone can collaborate on the collection and enjoy more complete memories. Learn how to set up and use a Shared Library.

support.apple.com

If you are indeed not using a "shared library", then this is really bizarre. It does remind me of an older thread where turning on Family Sharing supposedly synced passwords across devices (https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...two-family-members-devices-wtf-apple.2279595/). Maybe something similar is happening here with Photos.

Hers does not have that when I go into her Photo App and click her picture, Hers does not show Library View Options like yours shows.