Shared Photos library

[mjohansen]

Hi

Me and my wife has separate iCloud accounts which are connected to separate users on our Mac computers. We also have a shared iCloud account which is connected to a shared user on our Macs.

We primarily created a shared iCould account and user account because I wasnt able to figure out how we seamlessly could create a shared photos library which was accessible by us both with our separate user accounts. The shared account allowed us both to get access to all our photos.

But I'm pretty tired of the setup. Is it possible to make a true shared photos library, which is automatically synced to our separate iCould accounts? That way we could get rid of our shared account, and that would also allow us to access our photos on our iPhones.

Thanks in advance.

EDIT: I read that it might be possible if you save the Photos library on a external hard drive. Have anyone tried that out?
What happens if I take a photo with my iPhone. Will it automatically be syned to my wifes phone, or will I have to turn on the Mac for the sync to happen?

 

[Juicy Box]

. Is it possible to make a true shared photos library, which is automatically synced to our separate iCould accounts?

I looked into this a while back for my family, but I didn't find a solution.

I wanted a way for all the photos taken on each of my families iPhones to be synched into one storage location, either physical or iCloud.

The only solution was to share one iCloud account, something that I did not want to do.

This seems like an easy thing to do for Apple.

There were a few comments saying that sharing photos with your family could lead to embarrassing situations, but I wasn't worried about that, and I am not sure why that would stop Apple from adding a feature like this to iCloud Family.

 

[Mike Boreham]

I have looked into this very hard too, and AFAIK it just isn't possible.

For many years my wife and I had a single Apple ID, which meant that, like you, the photos we each took went to the same iCloud Photos Library on all devices. Edits and culls were propagated across all devices. We were happy with the Mail, Calendars and Contacts sharing, and were able to set Messages so that we didn't see each others all the time.

In fact everything was great until she wanted an Apple Watch. The only way to keep her health and fitness data separate from mine was to have her own Apple ID.

So now her phone, watch and iPad are all on her own Apple ID and we have a Family Plan. IE the way Apple wants us to do it. But my Apple ID is a secondary account on her devices and her ID is a secondary account on my devices. This enables Mail, Contacts, Calendars and Reminders to be shared, which we want. Family Plan creates a separate shared Calendar which we do not need or use, and FP does not share Mail or Contacts, which we want and which the secondary account method does.

The way we now manage photos is using the shared Family album created when Family plan is set up. We can each put our photos in bulk (or culled) into the Family album and see it on all devices. Not as good as a single Apple ID and one Photos Library, but the best possible without third party apps like Mylio, which I looked at and seemed the best alternative, but not cheap.

 

[Mike Boreham]

But I'm pretty tired of the setup. Is it possible to make a true shared photos library, which is automatically synced to our separate iCould accounts? That way we could get rid of our shared account, and that would also allow us to access our photos on our iPhones.

There is a solution to this...its called Lightroom CC (not to be confused withLightroom Classic CC). It will cost you, but so does Apple Photos.

I have just set up LRCC on my iMac, MBP, iPhone X, and wife's iPhone 8 and iPad.

All 70,000 of our photos (600GB) are now in the Adobe cloud and available on any device, and edits and additions made on any device sync across all devices......like Photos.

The folder/album structure in LRCC is mine not the imposed moments/collections/years.

You can set LRCC on the iPhones so that photos taken with the Apple Camera are automatically added to LRCC. Or you can use the Lightroom Mobile camera which does raw.

You can choose or not to keep originals locally in addition to the Cloud. If you keep local originals they can be stored in a location outside the library eg on an external drive....unlike Photos, where they must be in the Photos Library to sync to iCloud.