Newbie question re Photos and iCloud storage

[Sarah L]

My dad, who is 77 and uses his ipad happily, recently bought an iMac to be able to sort and view his (nearly 40,000) photos.

He lives in the UK and I live in France - he doesn't really know how to sort his stuff so brought the photos here on an external hard drive hoping I'd be able to show him.

He just purchased 200GB of iCloud storage and wants me to to put the photos on there.

I have had an iMac since October and so am a relative newbie myself so I am hoping someone wiser can answer a few questions we have.

- Having set up a user account for dad on my mac we've entered his icloud details, and connected the photos app to the iCloud account, I've put some of his photos on there and they now show up on his iPad. I was going to go ahead and upload all of his photos to the cloud but from the pop up box it looks as if the photos will also put themselves onto the hard drive of my mac? This would take up loads of space given the number of pictures he has.

1. If I upload his photos using his user account on my mac, can I delete the photos from my mac once they're in the cloud?

2. On his iPad, when we open the photos app, there are three buttons at the bottom of the page: 'photos', 'shared'(with a cloud icon), and 'albums'. The photos I uploaded are showing in the 'photos' section but not in the 'shared' section ... could someone explain how it works please?? In simple terms ;-)

 

[Dubadai]

I might not be able to answer your question but I might be able to give you an insight to how I use iCloud with the Photos app to sync between my devices.

I do a lot of photography and when I've edited a photo and exported it from Lightroom, I drag the JPEG to a folder i created in the Photos app.

That folder is automatically synced to all my other iOS devices, so when the photo gets added to the folder it automatically shows up on my iPhone, where I can view and share it.

I am fairly sure that they gets stored locally, and if they are removed, they will be removed from the cloud as well.

How this works out practically is hard for me to say, but I know that switching a lot between iCloud accounts etc can be a hassle.

I would send the drive back to him, have him install Team Viewer and then you do this remotelly for him.

Have him plug in the drive, open the Photos app. Turn on iCloud photos etc. Then just drag all the files from the harddrive to the Photos app. It should all eventually sync.

I think this would be the easiest way!

Also, how large are the photos? 200GB might not be enough for 40,000 photos, so double check the total size as well for all the photos (I am sure you did this before buying the storage, but just thought that I would mention it!)

My dad, who is 77 and uses his ipad happily, recently bought an iMac to be able to sort and view his (nearly 40,000) photos.

He lives in the UK and I live in France - he doesn't really know how to sort his stuff so brought the photos here on an external hard drive hoping I'd be able to show him.

He just purchased 200GB of iCloud storage and wants me to to put the photos on there.

I have had an iMac since October and so am a relative newbie myself so I am hoping someone wiser can answer a few questions we have.

- Having set up a user account for dad on my mac we've entered his icloud details, and connected the photos app to the iCloud account, I've put some of his photos on there and they now show up on his iPad. I was going to go ahead and upload all of his photos to the cloud but from the pop up box it looks as if the photos will also put themselves onto the hard drive of my mac? This would take up loads of space given the number of pictures he has.

1. If I upload his photos using his user account on my mac, can I delete the photos from my mac once they're in the cloud?

2. On his iPad, when we open the photos app, there are three buttons at the bottom of the page: 'photos', 'shared'(with a cloud icon), and 'albums'. The photos I uploaded are showing in the 'photos' section but not in the 'shared' section ... could someone explain how it works please?? In simple terms ;-)

 

[Sarah L]

Thanks Dubadai,
I feared as much. TeamViewer sounds like a good solution. I'll try to get my sister who lives near him in the UK to get to on to the computer for him (I didn't know it worked on Mac too - good news!) and I'll install it here. Then hopefully we could get the photos uploaded from his mac rather than from mine.
I think 200GB is plenty for now - the hard drive they're on at the moment is 250 and there's still loads of room (He has plans to digitise all mum's photo albums going back to the 1960s!!)

Any ideas on my second question?

2. On his iPad, when we open the photos app, there are three buttons at the bottom of the page: 'photos', 'shared'(with a cloud icon), and 'albums'. The photos I uploaded are showing in the 'photos' section but not in the 'shared' section ... could someone explain how it works please?? In simple terms ;-)

 

[Dubadai]

Regarding your second question, the shared section is where shared albums show up if you for example share an album between friends or family.

Albums are albums, where you can put everything into albums if you'd like. These can be shared, and will then show up in the shared tab.

Have a look here: https://www.apple.com/icloud/photos/

David

Thanks Dubadai,
I feared as much. TeamViewer sounds like a good solution. I'll try to get my sister who lives near him in the UK to get to on to the computer for him (I didn't know it worked on Mac too - good news!) and I'll install it here. Then hopefully we could get the photos uploaded from his mac rather than from mine.
I think 200GB is plenty for now - the hard drive they're on at the moment is 250 and there's still loads of room (He has plans to digitise all mum's photo albums going back to the 1960s!!)

Any ideas on my second question?

2. On his iPad, when we open the photos app, there are three buttons at the bottom of the page: 'photos', 'shared'(with a cloud icon), and 'albums'. The photos I uploaded are showing in the 'photos' section but not in the 'shared' section ... could someone explain how it works please?? In simple terms ;-)