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"Photos": Photo Sharing with iPhone???

Sorry for a really dumb question, but how do I get the Photos Application (on my silicon MBP and Mac Studio) to share photos with my iPhone 12?


I think this used to happen years ago automatically, but it no longer happens.


Ideally, new photos taken on the iPhone would be available on the MBP and Studio; similarly, if I deleted images from the iPhone they would be deleted on the MBP and Studio.


If this is possible, where are the images stored? The Cloud? Or my Studio with 4TB of storage?


Many, many thanks!


PS Both the Studio and the MBP are running Ventura, and iOS on the phone is up-to-date as well.

Posted on Jan 16, 2023 12:52 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jan 25, 2023 9:22 AM

My Photostream was a syncing system that is giving way to iCloud syncing. iCloud syncing transfers pictures from the to the "Cloud" and then from the Cloud to the Mac, back and forth. You can go to iCloud.com from any browser anywhere and see all your pictures, and all your devices keep in sync pretty much effortlessly. If you have lots of pictures, you would need to pay Apple a bit for the storage space in iCloud ,like $3/month for 200GB. It's pretty cool.


So, check iCloud.

Set up and use iCloud Photos - Apple Support


Optimize Storage means that only smaller, screen-sized images may be stored on you Mac (and a similar setting for the phone). The pictures look as good as they can look on the screen, and when you want to edit or print them, the computer brings them in for full resolution. You usually have to be connected to the internet to edit or print. I have plenty of room on my Mac's hard drive, so I don't check this. That way, when I back up my Mac, I'm backing up full sized images. Of course, the full sized images are alway in iCloud.I do have it checked on my phone.


Shared Albums lets you make pictures available for friends and relatives who use Mac Photos. If your interested, you can look here:

How to use Shared Albums in Photos on your iPhone, iPad, and Mac - Apple Support




7 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jan 25, 2023 9:22 AM in response to CharPatton

My Photostream was a syncing system that is giving way to iCloud syncing. iCloud syncing transfers pictures from the to the "Cloud" and then from the Cloud to the Mac, back and forth. You can go to iCloud.com from any browser anywhere and see all your pictures, and all your devices keep in sync pretty much effortlessly. If you have lots of pictures, you would need to pay Apple a bit for the storage space in iCloud ,like $3/month for 200GB. It's pretty cool.


So, check iCloud.

Set up and use iCloud Photos - Apple Support


Optimize Storage means that only smaller, screen-sized images may be stored on you Mac (and a similar setting for the phone). The pictures look as good as they can look on the screen, and when you want to edit or print them, the computer brings them in for full resolution. You usually have to be connected to the internet to edit or print. I have plenty of room on my Mac's hard drive, so I don't check this. That way, when I back up my Mac, I'm backing up full sized images. Of course, the full sized images are alway in iCloud.I do have it checked on my phone.


Shared Albums lets you make pictures available for friends and relatives who use Mac Photos. If your interested, you can look here:

How to use Shared Albums in Photos on your iPhone, iPad, and Mac - Apple Support




Jan 17, 2023 7:14 PM in response to CharPatton

Hi CharPatton,


The service you're looking for is iCloud Photos, which will sync your Photos libraries across all of your Apple devices signed in and using that feature via iCloud. Set up and use iCloud Photos offers the steps to enable this service for iPhone, iPad and Mac as:


"On your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch

  1. Go to Settings > [your name].
  2. Tap iCloud.
  3. Tap Photos, then turn on iCloud Photos.


On your Mac

  1. Choose Apple menu  > System Settings or choose Apple menu  > System Preferences.
  2. Click Apple ID. 
  3. Click iCloud in the sidebar, then select Photos."


Regards.

Jan 18, 2023 11:48 AM in response to Bill_T1

Hi:


Thanks much for responding; we appreciate it!!!


That's what's so weird. All of those things are done (I think) on my iPhone and Silicon MBP.


Here is my iPhone (running iOS 16.1.2):


Here is my Silicon MBP (running OS 13.1) Prefs page and the start of my Photos app, showing most recent September 2022 (and that may have been manually added):



The Studio Mac has very weird error with Photos "off", since we are indeed using APFS:


Many thanks for helping to puzzle out this weird behavior!

Jan 25, 2023 7:42 AM in response to Richard.Taylor

Excellent idea; thanks!


Here is what I have currently:



Should I check the first two boxes (iCloud Photos and My Photo Stream)? (I don't understand what "My Photo Stream" does.)


Where are the photos of record "definitively" kept? In the Cloud? Or on the Mac Studio?


Much appreciated!


(PS When I get an hour or so, I'll call Apple Support re the APFS bug described above; thanks.)

Jan 25, 2023 10:08 AM in response to CharPatton

You may also want to click the first tab in the Photos Preferences - Photos > Preferences > General.

Make sure, that "Use as System Photos Library" is enabled. If this button is not dimmed, click it, to make the currently open Photos Library your System Photos Library. Then you should be able to enable iCloud Photos. Only the System Photos Library can be made your iCloud Photos Library.


Also look at the line "Library Location" at the top of the "general" tab. It shows you, where your currently open Library is located. The best place would be the Pictures folder in your user home folder.

The error message you have shown suggests, that Photos is currently using a library on an external volume, with a different file system format, not a library on your internal drive.



"Photos": Photo Sharing with iPhone???

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