My pictures in Photos.app, iCloud, and iPhone are really messed up

[palmerc2]

A few months ago, my pictures got really messed up, and I believe the cause of it is the Photos.app

Up until recently I always used iPhoto to manage my photo library on my Mac, and as for syncing photos to my iPhone I'd go outside of iPhoto using file folders.

Now that I've updated my Mac which uses Photos.app instead of iPhoto, that's when I started having problems.

In addition to having a separate folder in Photos.app called "iPhoto Events" (which is good), all the pictures that were automatically imported from iPhoto into Photos.app are now also located in the folder "All Photos" which syncs via iCloud to my iPhone which is burning up space and I don't want them there. I only want the pictures I take with my iPhone.

There's quite a few duplicates of my pictures as well. Furthermore, a lot of my photos are really out of chronological order they're not displaying properly by date and time taken.

As there are currently 18k photos synced in All Photos, and to my iPhone, is there a way I can easily:
1. Remove my iPhoto import photos out of "All Photos" so they don't sync to my iPhone / iCloud?
2. Organize the photos that are in "All Photos" so they appear by date taken?

Special Note: I tried going to View > Sort > and "Keep Sorted by Oldest Date Added" already has a checkmark, and there's no other option. I also went to "get info" from a few pictures in "All Photos" and the dates are correct, just not how they are organized. I'll have a series of photos taken in September 2015 next to photos taken in July 2016, then March 2015 (as an example)....this happens in many instances. This also affects the order on my iPhone as well.

Thank you for your help!

 

[mrnorwegian]

Hi. The All photos album is a view of your photos sorted by date added. So the last imported items will show last, even if the capture date was five years ago. Photos should appear in chronological order under other views like Photos, moments and years.

iCloud sync is controlled under Photos -> settings -> iCloud. Its a all or nothing setting for the entire library, you can’t sync only specific images. You could however have two libraries. One system library that syncs with iCloud and one library that does not.

EDIT: If you want a "all photos" album in chronological order just make one yourself: Create a new smart album and choose something that would include all images. (Like date added is last 100 years). Then open the album and change the sort setting.

 

[palmerc2]

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Hi. The All photos album is a view of your photos sorted by date added. So the last imported items will show last, even if the capture date was five years ago. Photos should appear in chronological order under other views like Photos, moments and years.

iCloud sync is controlled under Photos -> settings -> iCloud. Its a all or nothing setting for the entire library, you can’t sync only specific images. You could however have two libraries. One system library that syncs with iCloud and one library that does not.

EDIT: If you want a "all photos" album in chronological order just make one yourself: Create a new smart album and choose something that would include all images. (Like date added is last 100 years). Then open the album and change the sort setting.

Thank you for your reply.

Regarding the order of the photos, when I go to "All Photos" I went to View > Photos, which shows them in chronological order, so that's much better. However this doesn't change "All Photos" on my iPhone it's still a mess.

As far as the iCloud sync, it's not that I want to sync specific items, I just don't want the iPhoto import in "All Photos"...If I understand your tip properly, the best thing to do is manually go through all the photos in All Photos and delete the ones I don't want synced to iCloud & iPhone, then move them to a smart folder? Could I make this smart folder the Album which new pictures I take on iPhone are synced to?

In the end, I just want my Camera Roll back on my iPhone the way it was before Photos.app

 

[mrnorwegian]

You should not delete photos from the all photos album. That would delete them altogether. The all photos album is a view of all your photos sorted by date added. For chronological view just use the tab on the bottom left of the Photos app on your phone or make custom albums.

Since you are syncing the library in iCloud all the images in the Mac system library will appear on your phone and vice verca.

If you want your old camera roll back you could stop syncing to iCloud Photo Library on your phone, but then your iPhone images would not automatically sync to your Mac library anymore.

The all photos is indeed a messy view, but thats not the practical view in most use cases on your phone. More often than not it would be easier to find images by browsing the views in the bottom left tab, browsing your custom albums or searching.

 

[palmerc2]

You should not delete photos from the all photos album. That would delete them altogether. The all photos album is a view of all your photos sorted by date added. For chronological view just use the tab on the bottom left of the Photos app on your phone or make custom albums.

Since you are syncing the library in iCloud all the images in the Mac system library will appear on your phone and vice verca.

If you want your old camera roll back you could stop syncing to iCloud Photo Library on your phone, but then your iPhone images would not automatically sync to your Mac library anymore.

The all photos is indeed a messy view, but thats not the practical view in most use cases on your phone. More often than not it would be easier to find images by browsing the views in the bottom left tab, browsing your custom albums or searching.

I called Apple Support to see if they'd have a solution, and the only solution would be to take the photos I don't want synced with iCloud & iPhone and move them to an individual file folder and delete them from Photos.app. Then as far as viewing them in chronological order on my iPhone, I have to go to Moments which I personally don't prefer vs All Photos.

Perhaps I am the minority here, but I really don't like this new way of managing photos it seems like such a big step back from how it was before with a dedicated Camera Roll album that can be backed up to iCloud. It would be much better if there was a separate Camera Roll album that only shows pictures & videos taken and saved from my iPhone, and that's synced by iCloud. But having new photos and videos I take with my iPhone only be saved to All Photos which includes all photos in Photos.app is frustrating and annoying. Being severely out of chronological order and having duplicates doesn't help either. This doesn't "just work" IMO.

Thank you for your input.

 

[mrnorwegian]

I hear you. I would also like more control, but guess this is how they make it avaible to most people by limiting the choices.

That said, if you can live with the limitations the syncing is very practical, you just shoot and it shows up on all devices in no time at all. But you have to change your thinking from what we are used to with other software. Good luck!