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Photos Management Help

fjfjfjfj

fjfjfjfj

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Mar 20, 2009
328
141
New York, NY
I’m having a hard time finding where to post this question so forgive me if it’s not in the best place…

I need some help. I’ve finally come to the conclusion that it’s not possible to keep our family photo album (40,000 photos) synced between my iCloud account and my wife’s iCloud account. (Lots of years of manual workarounds but it’s just not tenable).
I’ve come to terms with the fact that we will just have to keep two separate libraries and text important photos to one another to keep in our individual iCloud photos accounts.
Having said that, I would like to perform one last copy of my entire library to her iCloud photos account (all the pictures of the kids when they were little, holidays, etc). I’m seeing conflicting information about how I might perform this and keep all the date and location information.
We both have MacBooks as well as iPhones and iPads so I can use whichever device will make the transfer easiest (I’m thinking some kind of copy past from my MacBook to an external drive and then to her MacBook???).
Here are the requirements:
- ability to copy all of my photos and keep location and original date information
- I don’t want to replace her photo library with this history, just integrate it into her existing photo library
- no need to maintain ongoing, after this one transfer we will live our photo lives separately, sharing photos through text or airdrop as needed individually

Does that make sense and can someone offer some advice on how to accomplish?

Thank you in advance.
 
MarkVeldhuis said:
Are your MacBooks running macOS Monterey? Scroll down to the bottom of this page and see if the info there is what you are looking for.
Click to expand...
First, thank you very much for the reply.
It actually seems like it might work perfectly. I’ve been down so many roads I don’t want to get my hopes up but I’m going to give it a try and report back.

Thank you again!
 
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fjfjfjfj said:
First, thank you very much for the reply.
It actually seems like it might work perfectly. I’ve been down so many roads I don’t want to get my hopes up but I’m going to give it a try and report back.

Thank you again!
Click to expand...
You’re welcome! ?
Hope it works as expected and looking forward to hear from you.
 
Don't rush off haphazardly, not that you seem like the type that would but thats a lot of data that is impossible to recreate. Plan for the best, prepare for the worst.

Make a backup of the library on an external storage source. If you have your entire library downloaded on MacOS you can even copy the database in photos/photo library. This way if things don't go as planned you damage control won't pure panic.

Once you have this initial copy I would consider making a shared library between just you and her and maybe another with you her and other family members and friends. Drop the photos and videos you want to share in it whenever. She can view them just as if they were in her photo album or download them if she wants them.

Myself and 8 of my friends started a shared album back in 2013-2014. Occasionally we will update it. But there is now 4500 photos in it from some of the best years of my life, from hanging out drinking in a friends basement to a lot of our wedding photos, new houses, new kids, etc. Never thought Apples idea they marketed behind it would become a thing, at least not for me....
 
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You’ve got to learn to edit and cull.
A traditional roll of real 35mm film had 36 exposures on it. Let’s say that out of one roll, you edit out 8 and keep 24 of them. 40,000 images is 1666 rolls of 35mm film with 8 tossed out per roll.
On average, the cost of a roll of slide film plus developing cost about $18.
$18 x 1666 rolls = $30,000.

Nobody and that’s nobody ever spent $30,000 on 1666 rolls of film for family snapshots. Back then everyone was more careful how many pictures they shot.

Bottom line: iCloud photo limit isn’t the problem, the problem is way too many pictures.
 
To suggest a slightly different but potentially more expensive solution... I have a Synology NAS that I use for backup for both my Windows box and my MacBook Pro. It turns out that Synology has an iOS app, and one of the functions available in it is to backup iPhone photos to the NAS. On the NAS there's a photo management app. Backing up all of my photos to the NAS lets me cull pics from my phone, and by extension iCloud, because I still have them on the NAS. If you and your wife implemented something like this, you could both backup to a NAS, and all of the photos would be available to both of you. But it does require buying and setting up a NAS if you don't already have one.
 
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fjfjfjfj said:
I’m having a hard time finding where to post this question so forgive me if it’s not in the best place…

I need some help. I’ve finally come to the conclusion that it’s not possible to keep our family photo album (40,000 photos) synced between my iCloud account and my wife’s iCloud account. (Lots of years of manual workarounds but it’s just not tenable).
I’ve come to terms with the fact that we will just have to keep two separate libraries and text important photos to one another to keep in our individual iCloud photos accounts.
Having said that, I would like to perform one last copy of my entire library to her iCloud photos account (all the pictures of the kids when they were little, holidays, etc). I’m seeing conflicting information about how I might perform this and keep all the date and location information.
We both have MacBooks as well as iPhones and iPads so I can use whichever device will make the transfer easiest (I’m thinking some kind of copy past from my MacBook to an external drive and then to her MacBook???).
Here are the requirements:
- ability to copy all of my photos and keep location and original date information
- I don’t want to replace her photo library with this history, just integrate it into her existing photo library
- no need to maintain ongoing, after this one transfer we will live our photo lives separately, sharing photos through text or airdrop as needed individually

Does that make sense and can someone offer some advice on how to accomplish?

Thank you in advance.
Click to expand...
Off topic: have you done a good search for duplicates yet???
 
cynics said:
Don't rush off haphazardly, not that you seem like the type that would but thats a lot of data that is impossible to recreate. Plan for the best, prepare for the worst.

Make a backup of the library on an external storage source. If you have your entire library downloaded on MacOS you can even copy the database in photos/photo library. This way if things don't go as planned you damage control won't pure panic.

Once you have this initial copy I would consider making a shared library between just you and her and maybe another with you her and other family members and friends. Drop the photos and videos you want to share in it whenever. She can view them just as if they were in her photo album or download them if she wants them.

Myself and 8 of my friends started a shared album back in 2013-2014. Occasionally we will update it. But there is now 4500 photos in it from some of the best years of my life, from hanging out drinking in a friends basement to a lot of our wedding photos, new houses, new kids, etc. Never thought Apples idea they marketed behind it would become a thing, at least not for me....
Click to expand...
'If you have your entire library downloaded on MacOS you can even copy the database in photos/photo library.' Might be my not reading this as you meant but....can you be more specific? Why and HOW? By the database do you mean the actual photos or....? Just wondering. What can be done with just the database? Thanks in advance for any answers....
 
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