iTunes Sync Photos 'only favourite' doesn't sync all favourites to my iPad

[NazgulRR]

I would like to manually sync Favourites from Photos app on my MacBook onto my iPad Pro.

I've got 656 photos in my iCloud Photos Library Favourites album - i.e. 656 photos with a 'heart' on (these are all photos, not videos). I'm looking at these 656 photos on my MacBook (10.13.6).

I plug my iPad Pro (11.4.1) into the MacBook, open up iTunes and set it to sync Photos as follows:

Only 372 photos make its way to my iPad.

Any ideas why doesn't the full population of 656 favourite photos make it over? I definitely have more than enough space for them on my iPad.

Thanks!

 

[NazgulRR]

Ok, I have figured this out now.

The thing is that a photo will only sync over if the original full-res size of that photo is downloaded to the Mac.

If you have Photos set to 'Optimize Mac Storage', it is not clear which photos are downloaded fully and which not and it is likely that not all Favorites are downloaded to the Mac (as was in my case). Unfortunately there is no way to set the Favorites album only to 'Download originals to this Mac' (as you can do with regular albums) so I had to duplicate the album manually. Fortunately this was only few extra clicks, but Apple could have definitely made this easier....