Mac Photos app

[marcr1230]

I started using the built-in Photos app yesterday

the photo sharing part is pretty unintelligible

all I want it to do is share my photos to iCloud, and download iCloud stream to my mac - why is this so hard

I have some pictures I imported before I turned on sharing, seems impossible to now add these to the stream...

 

[Ronald M]

I don`t even try this stuff . Leads to days of frustration.

My grandkids who are in 5 to 11 grade seem to make things work. So the issue is us old folks who can not think outside the box and learn new things.

Two suggestions. Try You Tube for instructions. Resend the photos back to cloud and try to retrieve them.

Persevere, it gets harder and harder with age.

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

Make sure iCloud Photo Library is switched on, on all of the devices, and that you're signed in to the same account. It takes some time for everything to upload and download; I just left all my devices plugged in and switched on, and open to photos, until it was done (maybe 24 hours total?). It should take a lot less for you though. All your old imports should also be syncing. After it's done, any new phone photos you take should show up on your Mac, and any photos you drag into the Mac app should show up on the phone. Go into the prefs on each device and make sure you check "download originals to this Mac" or whatever the phone equivalent is if you want the whole canonical non-downrezzed images there, rather than a thumbnail. (I do thumbnails on my phone, to save space, but my two macs, home and work, keep full-res copies.)

Also, don't entrust the cloud to your only full-res copies. Make backups, etc etc.

The share dialogue seems, to me, simplicity itself. Command-click on the photo, or the selected group of photos, pick "Share," and choose what service, app, or person you want to share to. If you pick "more" you get a menu where you can check or uncheck all the available services.



Once you get it all cooking, it works really reliably. Good luck, feel free to ask more detailed questions.

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

One other thing, "iCloud photo sharing" in the share menu is different from streaming to the mac. That refers to making public galleries for other people to see. If you just want to sync photos between computer and phone, make sure "iCloud Photo Library" is checked on both and ignore the "sharing" stuff.

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

Also, I do not get what "photostream" is anymore, honestly. I keep it turned off. Checking "iCloud Photo Library" is the thing that makes the devides sync. Photostream, if I remember right, is an old implementation of this that seems completely obsolete now, and it's just confusing to have it on there.

 

[willie_901]

Hi,

When you say share to iCloud: do you mean shared Albums that others with can view on Apple devices with Photos as well as viewing with a browser on non-Apple devices?

 

[Texsport]

Whatever you do, don't ask an Apple "genius" for advice.

One of them directed my wife in how to transfer photos over the phone. While the "genius" was on-the-line, he managed to engineer the loss of about 5,000 of her most cherished photos.

Beware!

Texsport

 

[marcr1230]

i'm trying iCloud instead of Photostream - this should be easier, and I work in tech.

 

[photomoof]

Also, I do not get what "photostream" is anymore, honestly. I keep it turned off. Checking "iCloud Photo Library" is the thing that makes the devides sync. Photostream, if I remember right, is an old implementation of this that seems completely obsolete now, and it's just confusing to have it on there.

Photostream is a semi-public album, now used mostly for users of Apple TV for screensaver. I allow it, but limit what it in it.

Whatever you do, don't ask an Apple "genius" for advice.

One of them directed my wife in how to transfer photos over the phone. While the "genius" was on-the-line, he managed to engineer the loss of about 5,000 of her most cherished photos.

Beware!

Texsport

Bummer, but all is not lost.

She had never synced or backed up her iPhone, or her computer? It is amazing we keep hearing these stories, as backups become easier.

IMO the images are still "somewhere," there is no way to permanently delete 5000 photos instantly from either device. She needs to take it to a good mac shop to recover the images, unless this was a very long time ago.

Of course if she never made any backups, it gets more problematic, but even on an iPhone they are still "there." On a computer deleted photos are easy to recover.

 

[photomoof]

I started using the built-in Photos app yesterday

the photo sharing part is pretty unintelligible

all I want it to do is share my photos to iCloud, and download iCloud stream to my mac - why is this so hard

I have some pictures I imported before I turned on sharing, seems impossible to now add these to the stream...

Actually it is trivial. If you want to use iCloud to store photos just turn on iCloud on all your devices using the same Apple ID. Ignore ALL the "sharing," settings those are for social media, Apple TV and the like.

If you are using iCloud, and you take a photo on your iPhone, within seconds the photo will appear on your desktop. If you upload to iCloud, by allowing Photo.app to import from your camera, within moments the photos will be available from your phone.

If you shoot a lot you will have to buy more storage, or download and archive some of the iCloud, by signing in directly.

In my case I do not use iCloud to backup serious work, only my iPhone images.

I use Google, and an external HD to backup my digital photos taken with my DSLR, or worked on in photoshop.

A terabyte on iCloud is about $120 a year, you can store unlimited on Google for free, but my trust of Google is mixed. I use both. In defense of Google, they have never lost anything of mine in the last 10 years of using Google docs.

 

[Texsport]

Photostream is a semi-public album, now used mostly for users of Apple TV for screensaver. I allow it, but limit what it in it.



Bummer, but all is not lost.

She had never synced or backed up her iPhone, or her computer? It is amazing we keep hearing these stories, as backups become easier.

IMO the images are still "somewhere," there is no way to permanently delete 5000 photos instantly from either device. She needs to take it to a good mac shop to recover the images, unless this was a very long time ago.

Of course if she never made any backups, it gets more problematic, but even on an iPhone they are still "there." On a computer deleted photos are easy to recover.

Apple said they couldn't recover them from her iPad!

 

[photomoof]

Apple said they couldn't recover them from her iPad!

First, she had never made a backup to iTunes??? Never? Ever? Not even once? Because if she did it is easy to recover lost files.

OK no?

This is not a procedure that Apple is going to do for you, it must be done using third party software, by someone who knows what they are doing. Expect to pay up to $500 for this kind of recovery service, or do it yourself, for far less.

http://www.macworld.com/article/209...data-from-your-iphone-ipad-or-ipod-touch.html

http://www.aiseesoft.com/mac-iphone-data-recovery/

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

Actually it is trivial. If you want to use iCloud to store photos just turn on iCloud on all your devices using the same Apple ID. Ignore ALL the "sharing," settings those are for social media, Apple TV and the like.

If you are using iCloud, and you take a photo on your iPhone, within seconds the photo will appear on your desktop. If you upload to iCloud, by allowing Photo.app to import from your camera, within moments the photos will be available from your phone.

Yeah, this is what I was trying, less straightforwardly to say. Turn off sharing, turn off photostream, turn on iCloud Photo Library on both devices, and everything will sync, easy peasy.

Also, I agree about backups. Everyone needs to have redundant backups of everything, and the only copies of anything should never be on an iPad, iPhone, or other mobile device. I also recommend Backblaze for cloud backups, five bucks a month, and your whole computer is backed up, in case your house and your hard drive backups are destroyed in a fire. Apple Photos, IMHO, should ONLY be used as an additional copy of everything, one that syncs for your viewing enjoyment. I'm sorry to hear about the loss of those pictures.

 

[marcr1230]

Well, certainly going down the rabbit hole here

Initially - I started using photos on an older aperture library
Then , I decided I would start fresh with a new system library - loaded my 40 latest pictures
I wanted to post them to FB, but not to my account - so I thought , I'll email the good ones to my mail account - then save them to my phone and post from there, which is easy

That's when this thread started, so I emailed , but the mail contains a zip file of full rez photos and crappy thumbnails - and apple lets you message and email and export to other apps from the zip file - but not to the phone's own camera roll

So then I inadvertently saved and posted the crappy thumbnails

Then I said - well if I turn on iCloud (photo stream initially) and have all photos from all devices on my phone - I can post the quality resolution

So I turned on iCloud - setting it to store originals on my computer - not realizing that it will now copy the 5000 iPhone shots to the Mac , but somehow not copy the original full red shots to the phone ( unless that happens later)

So in copying my iPhone library to my Mac using iCloud and photos app - I now have 2 copies of these 5000 because they all exist already in my aperture library which synced over the years by automatically copying photostream into monthly folders

So while I let this finish - I am dusting off my UNIX comparator script - which goes thru my drive and selects only one copy of each original and cooies it to a consolidated directory

Technology sucks

I never had this trouble w film

 

[photomoof]

So I turned on iCloud - setting it to store originals on my computer - not realizing that it will now copy the 5000 iPhone shots to the Mac , but somehow not copy the original full red shots to the phone ( unless that happens later)


Technology sucks

I never had this trouble w film

You can set the phone to try and keep originals, but that would require a phone with a lot of memory, many of us only have 16GB phones so the phone only brings up high rez when viewing.

It sucks, there is no perfect solution.

But thousands of slides is not all that non-sucky either, I have been sorting recently. 😱