What happens to iPhone-created photo albums once iCloud Photo Library activated?

[davidhammer]

Updated to iCloud Photo Library on my Macbook Air. Used my wife's iCloud account (she's in charge of the photos). Everything uploaded just fine in a couple days. Works great on the computer and on iCloud.com.

I'm now ready to activate it on her iPhone so that everything syncs between the two. However, she has a few albums she's created on her iPhone already (recipes, baby pics, etc.) - that are NOT currently in Photos on the Mac. If I activate it, are those lost? Do they combine with the other albums in Photos?

 

[zorinlynx]

They will all merge together.

I suggest taking a backup of all existing photos on the phone just in case. iCPL is not a backup, and shouldn't be trusted as your only backup.

You can also put all the photos on the phone into a new album before turning it on, so you don't lose track of which photos were on that phone before everything gets merged together.