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iCloud Shared Photo Library Support Added in Latest iOS 16 and macOS Ventura Betas

What about space? Let’s say my wife has a 200 GB photo library and I have a 200 GB photo library and we opt to share our entire history with each other.

Does that mean my library size is now 400 GB because it implements her actual photos? Or is it just a logical linking and thus my library size doesn’t ballon?
 
Best feature in recent years. Can’t wait for Sept when my entire family can migrate to this. Or can we already do so, as long as one member is on beta?
 
btrach144 said:
What about space? Let’s say my wife has a 200 GB photo library and I have a 200 GB photo library and we opt to share our entire history with each other.

Does that mean my library size is now 400 GB because it implements her actual photos? Or is it just a logical linking and thus my library size doesn’t ballon?
Click to expand...
With apple my guess is 600 Gb....
 
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btrach144 said:
What about space? Let’s say my wife has a 200 GB photo library and I have a 200 GB photo library and we opt to share our entire history with each other.

Does that mean my library size is now 400 GB because it implements her actual photos? Or is it just a logical linking and thus my library size doesn’t ballon?
Click to expand...
If you are on individual iCloud plans and assuming no duplicates, then it means that yours will be 400gb (if you shared) and hers will be 0gb.

If you are on shared family plan, it should not matter as the entire family can use the shared iCloud storage limit.

But the fact is there will be duplicates, whether it is full resolution sent over airdrop or compressed pictures sent over WhatsApp. Thereafter, check for duplicates and merge them to reduce overall space to less than 400gb.
 
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Grimace said:
The words "Move Photos" are throwing me off a little. If we are truly moving them to this album, and everyone has Read/Write/Delete access, couldn't your annoying sister delete your photo?

Or, should it read "Copy Photos" to the Shared Album?
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I did some very quick testing by myself. The Photos app (in macOS) defaults to “Both Libraries” after you create a shared library, and if I switch to “Personal Library,” the photos I added are no longer there—they only appear in Shared Library. I would hope a deleted Shared Photo would simply return to your Personal Library; however, I did not test that. Absolutely horrible if it simply moved to the trash, and would require you to make a duplicate of any photo you decide to share.

Deadeyeshark said:
Interested to know a couple of things, does your personal library remain intact once you move photos to the shared library and if so does the shared library eat into your iCloud allowance?
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The creator of the Shared Library provides the storage, but if you’re sharing your own photos, they don’t take up twice the space, since they are moved from your Personal Library to the Shared Library. Based on this, I suspect an invitee would lower their iCloud usage by moving photos to the Shared Library, since they would no longer exist in their Personal Library.

DotCom2 said:
Good question and I would like to know this as well.
Also, what if you have a pic that you really like and someone in the group edits it and messes it up? Can you just make a copy of a pic and send just a copy of it to the Shared Family Album, this not messing up the original?
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That is probably recommended if you are particularly attached to a certain photo and/or its edits. Photos shared via iCloud Photo Sharing still only exist once (in the Shared Library rather than your Personal Library). Any edits to those photos are applied to the single copy of those photos. And even if you completely trust your invitees not to vandalize your photos, honest mistakes happen.
 
Nothing ‘moves’ per se. it’s just the library creates a sub-directory essentially. So one person designates some photos to the shared library, but they still reside in their own library, using their own storage. The shared library is just a collection of the individual sub directories that the group collectively has access to including the ability to delete them.

I do think some control over editing and deleting are strongly needed. Hopefully they’ll be added before this is released in the Fall.
 
dcp10 said:
Nothing ‘moves’ per se. it’s just the library creates a sub-directory essentially. So one person designates some photos to the shared library, but they still reside in their own library, using their own storage. The shared library is just a collection of the individual sub directories that the group collectively has access to including the ability to delete them.

I do think some control over editing and deleting are strongly needed. Hopefully they’ll be added before this is released in the Fall.
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This is inaccurate.

Once it is moved, the photos will reside in the “shared” library. Your “own library” will no longer have the photos.

But on an iPhone, they will by default show both libraries. You can select to view either library of you choose to.

This is not a sub directory, such as creating an album within the library.

This is having 2 separate libraries with no common albums.
 
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Mr. Dee said:
I don’t want to to mess with this. I have too many ‘sensitive’ photos I don’t want my family to see. Knowing me, I am going to end up sending something to my mom.
Click to expand...

If it helps my Uncle added in some lovely photos of my aunt to an album I once shared to my entire family....
 
If it works well, we might finally have a place to move our entire stock of family photos to, currently we manage them on a USB drive (pain). Would be nice to have them in common cloud storage for sharing, and easy way to move photos to this common library directly from individual phones.

Hope some kind of offsite (non icloud) backup is possible.
 
dcp10 said:
Nothing ‘moves’ per se. it’s just the library creates a sub-directory essentially. So one person designates some photos to the shared library, but they still reside in their own library, using their own storage. The shared library is just a collection of the individual sub directories that the group collectively has access to including the ability to delete them..
Click to expand...
Wrong!
 
Lethen said:
Wrong!
Click to expand...
Lol. Care to elaborate? Dcp10 is of course correct. Might not even be subdirectories, just meta-data designating a photo to be part of personal or shared library. Obviously, in both cases they remain within your designated iCloud storage limits in your own library
 
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Library resides with person who created it, and it counts against their iCloud storage. You will then have a personal and a shared. If a familymembers moves a photo it’s not in their personal library (iCloud) any more, it’s in the shared library on your iCloud.
 
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Does this also mean any group member can delete any photo in the shared library?
 
Poorly thought out, dangerous, and essential features are missing.

The original user who wants to “share” should be designated the LIBRARIAN and only they should be able to approve any deletions or modifications. All photos should be labeled with who edited or deleted them (using a blank placeholder for deleted photos). Comments should be enabled for each photo. And it will only take one publicized incident of someone accidentally sending their family nude photos (because they left automatic sharing on) before THAT feature gets pulled.
 
ChromeAce said:
Poorly thought out, dangerous, and essential features are missing.

The original user who wants to “share” should be designated the LIBRARIAN and only they should be able to approve any deletions or modifications. All photos should be labeled with who edited or deleted them (using a blank placeholder for deleted photos). Comments should be enabled for each photo. And it will only take one publicized incident of someone accidentally sending their family nude photos (because they left automatic sharing on) before THAT feature gets pulled.
Click to expand...
Only in America
 
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ChromeAce said:
Poorly thought out, dangerous, and essential features are missing.

The original user who wants to “share” should be designated the LIBRARIAN and only they should be able to approve any deletions or modifications. All photos should be labeled with who edited or deleted them (using a blank placeholder for deleted photos). Comments should be enabled for each photo. And it will only take one publicized incident of someone accidentally sending their family nude photos (because they left automatic sharing on) before THAT feature gets pulled.
Click to expand...
You misspelled "hilarious incident". 🤣
 
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This is an extremely useful feature for me. For years I have been maintaining a very large library with face tagging, keywords, smart albums etc. The problem was that I could not share the library with my wife. I created some shared albums, but this was not enough. Also, I had to manually transfer photos that my wife took to my library. Now everything will be solved. We are going to have one shared library. I have been asking Apple for this feature several times through the feedback mechanism.
 
I've been waiting for this for years although I'm wondering what happens when some family members (myself included) have devices too old support either the new iOS or macOS updates? Will those devices simply no longer sync with the new shared iCloud library?
 
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