Mac photo album structure when using iCloud sync

[marthom45]

Hi, my wife & I synch all our IOS photos/videos to the Mac, here I clean them, remove duplicates, place into existing album/create new & then sync all the albums back to the IOS devices.

On my Mac I have organised my entire photo library into albums, I use Time Machine to a local NAS, if I ever lose the Mac I should be able to recover all photos in the right albums from that external drive. Recently however I have started thinking about swapping from NAS to iCloud for the photo element (would need to upgrading my iCloud subscription) mainly to remove the possibility my house burns down & I lose the Mac & NAS & photos are gone forever.

so the question is "if I synch my photo library to iCloud will it or can I make it keep the photos in the same album structure I have created on the Mac" ?

If the answer is "no" does anyone have any suggestions on workarounds.

thanks in advance, Mark.

 

[Brian33]

so the question is "if I synch my photo library to iCloud will it or can I make it keep the photos in the same album structure I have created on the Mac" ?

I sync my Photos library with iCloud Photos, and in my experience, yes -- the album structure will remain synced between your Mac and your iOS devices. Like you, I do my editing, culling, and organization on my Mac and it works great for me.

Regarding backups, I don't totally rely on iCloud Photos as my backup (except I count it as one of my off-site backups). Hypothetically something could go wrong with iCloud and stuff get deleted there and on my machines. So I run backups of my Photos library from my Mac, also. I recommend you continue your TM backups even if your turn on iCloud Photos.

Be sure to set Photos Preferences-->iCloud-->"Download Originals to this Mac" (I think that is not the default!) to ensure all photos are actually resident on your Mac when your TM backups run.

 

[marthom45]

Hi Brian, thanks for sharing your thoughts & it has made my mind up I think....

firstly you are correct, a photo synch between macOS -> iOS keeps all the photo/albums intact when you look on your IOS device, all under "from my Mac" - my issue was using iCloud as an off-site backup for the photos on my Mac, I doubt my album structure will be saved in iCloud, I think it will be a flat structure of all the photos, if my house burned down & I lost my Mac & onsite/NAS I could recover all photos from iCloud BUT I would have to re-create all the albums, put all photos back into those albums etc. etc.....I think!

...absolutely I will be keeping the onsite backup & TM but I think you have given me an offsite solution for my "doomsday scenario" which doesn't involve iCloud & the album issue - intermittently I can manually save the photo library to dropbox, I can always restore from that once I have a new house & Mac

do you see any flaws in that approach, I would like the backup to be automated because as humans we tend to forget to do things !!!

Mark.

 

[gilby101]

do you see any flaws in that approach, I would like the backup to be automated because as humans we tend to forget to do things !!!

Copying to Dropbox is fine as a first step. If you want automated off-site backup look at Arq Backup. Note that Arq can use Dropbox as its cloud destination. Apart from automation, Arq will keep history of changes to your photos. I use Arq to both OneDrive and Backblaze B2 cloud storages. None of this is free.

 

[TorbenIbsen]

I get the impression that you are connecting iPhones directly to the Mac and sync this way. - A method I am not familiar with, so I may misunderstand.

Me and my wife both have an "Apple set" (iMac, iPhone, iPad) using the same Apple ID (for most things). So we share photos. All our devices share photos directy via Apple iCloud sync. It has been so for many years now. Our mobile devices has never been physically connected to a Mac.

On the Mac you can create both manual folders and smart folders. And you can add "Keywords" to each photo in order to create all sorts of smart folders.

When Apple Photos synchronizes from Mac to iCloud and from iCloud to Mac it keeps both manual folders and smart folders and keywords. So both my (blue) iMac and my wife's (green) iMac have excactly the same situation. They are identical in all ways as regards to Apple Photos.

But. Synchronization between iCloud and IOS/iPADOS only includes the manual folders and the keywords. Not the smart folders. - So a new photo taken on an iPhone will not automatically be in a manual folder. It will stay in the "All Photos" folder on the iPhone and end up in the "All folders" on the Mac.

So there will be some post-processing which you will probably do on the Mac with those newly taken photos in order to place them in manual folders.

It is worth knowing that the Keywords you put on the photos on the Mac actually sync to the iPhone/iPad. You cannot see or maintain them on the mobile devices, but you can use them in a search on those devices.

 

[marthom45]

Copying to Dropbox is fine as a first step. If you want automated off-site backup look at Arq Backup. Note that Arq can use Dropbox as its cloud destination. Apart from automation, Arq will keep history of changes to your photos. I use Arq to both OneDrive and Backblaze B2 cloud storages. None of this is free.

"Arq" looks good & not too costly as a one-off payment, however upgrading my free dropbox to hold my 100gb library is costly & way more features/storage than I will every need, so for now I think I will keep it simple/cheap and maintain manual/local backups at regular periods.

thanks for your help.

 

[marthom45]

I get the impression that you are connecting iPhones directly to the Mac and sync this way. - A method I am not familiar with, so I may misunderstand.

Me and my wife both have an "Apple set" (iMac, iPhone, iPad) using the same Apple ID (for most things). So we share photos. All our devices share photos directy via Apple iCloud sync. It has been so for many years now. Our mobile devices has never been physically connected to a Mac.

On the Mac you can create both manual folders and smart folders. And you can add "Keywords" to each photo in order to create all sorts of smart folders.

When Apple Photos synchronizes from Mac to iCloud and from iCloud to Mac it keeps both manual folders and smart folders and keywords. So both my (blue) iMac and my wife's (green) iMac have excactly the same situation. They are identical in all ways as regards to Apple Photos.

But. Synchronization between iCloud and IOS/iPADOS only includes the manual folders and the keywords. Not the smart folders. - So a new photo taken on an iPhone will not automatically be in a manual folder. It will stay in the "All Photos" folder on the iPhone and end up in the "All folders" on the Mac.

So there will be some post-processing which you will probably do on the Mac with those newly taken photos in order to place them in manual folders.

It is worth knowing that the Keywords you put on the photos on the Mac actually sync to the iPhone/iPad. You cannot see or maintain them on the mobile devices, but you can use them in a search on those devices.

Hi Torben, its good to know that "albums" are kept intact when synched over iCloud, I have been searching for a post to clearly state that & you have done that.

the reason I chose not to synch all our IOS devices (mine, wife, kids) with the Mac via iCloud was around control of who in the family sees what, i.e. using iCloud its all or nothing, we have 100gb of photos/videos on the Mac and we don't all want to see them all, i.e. my wife doesn't care about my golf photos, I'm not interested in her photos & the kids don't care about either with the Mac sync you can select which albums to synch to each phone (& it remembers individually which albums to synch every time you connect them together) - so in essence we don't all get the full 100gb on the phone, it will be a cutdown selection relevant to the person/phone - so the album structure (smart/manual) are very important here.

also, I don't think the "keywords" work over the usb-C synch detailed above, I have proven this with a few photos, I can search the keyword on the Mac but not on the iPhone.

hope that makes sense, Mark.