Can someone explain how I manage Photos on Macs and iPhones?

[megaphone]

I'm always confused with this and reading the Apple help sites does not clear things up.

I have an iMac, my main computer. I have an Air. I have an iPhone 128GB personal phone. I have an iPhone 16GB work phone.

I DO NOT have iCloud Photos storage switched on, I'd like to make my iMac my main storage device for all Photos. I back it up with Time Machine.

I have PhotoSteam switched on on my iPhones, when I take a pic they appear on my Macs, I can then use them in emails etc easily, all my pics going back years are showing in Photos on my Macs.

My Work iPhone is now full, I need to delete pics, if I do so does that delate them from all devices? Will they just reappear on the iPhone after I delete them?

How do I ensure all my pics stay on my iMac even if I delete them on my other devices?

Edited by megaphone on Friday 15th February 10:17

[NDA]

I can't directly answer your question..... but I have much the same range of Apple gadgetry as you - iMac, iPhone, Air etc. I love Apple products, but hate their heavily curated ecosystem.

All my photos live on Flickr and the really precious ones (kids when they were little) are on two portable drives.

My iPhone backs up the camera roll to Flickr and when that's done, I delete them from my phone or iMac - they stay on Flickr, but I'm not storing them locally.

Sorry, I don't know the answer to your question other than to assume that a local deletion shouldn't delete from cloud storage. Only being signed in on the cloud storage and deleting should remove them.

[Sebastian Tombs]

megaphone said:

I'm always confused with this and reading the Apple help sites does not clear things up.

I have an iMac, my main computer. I have an Air. I have an iPhone 128GB personal phone. I have an iPhone 16GB work phone.

I DO NOT have iCloud Photos storage switched on, I'd like to make my iMac my main storage device for all Photos. I back it up with Time Machine.

I have PhotoSteam switched on on my iPhones, when I take a pic they appear on my Macs, I can then use them in emails etc easily, all my pics going back years are showing in Photos on my Macs.

My Work iPhone is now full, I need to delete pics, if I do so does that delate them from all devices? Will they just reappear on the iPhone after I delete them?

How do I ensure all my pics stay on my iMac even if I delete them on my other devices?

Edited by megaphone on Friday 15th February 10:17

Because you are not using iCloud Sync then deleting them from your phone will not delete them from anything else.
If you were using iCloud Sync then it would delete the photo everywhere.

My PhotoStream will copy photos automatically to your Macs, but it will not copy videos, so make sure you transfer those manually before you delete.

[surveyor]

have a look at google photos...

[NoTreadLeft]

megaphone said:

I DO NOT have iCloud Photos storage switched on, I'd like to make my iMac my main storage device for all Photos. I back it up with Time Machine.

1/. Switch iCloud Photos ON, on all devices. Not sure why you would switch this off?
2/. On your iMac, go into preferences and enable the option to download originals. This will leave a master copy of everything on your iMac which Time Machine will continue to backup.
3/. On your iPhone, under Photos, select Optimise iPhone Storage. This will automatically delete photos from the iPhone when space is low, leaving just thumbnails. The originals will re-download automatically if/when you need them.

That’s it. Apple put a lot of effort into making this work, and it works really well.

[megaphone]

Sebastian Tombs said:

Because you are not using iCloud Sync then deleting them from your phone will not delete them from anything else.
If you were using iCloud Sync then it would delete the photo everywhere.

My PhotoStream will copy photos automatically to your Macs, but it will not copy videos, so make sure you transfer those manually before you delete.

Thanks I'll take a look, makes sense.

[megaphone]

NoTreadLeft said:

megaphone said:

I DO NOT have iCloud Photos storage switched on, I'd like to make my iMac my main storage device for all Photos. I back it up with Time Machine.

1/. Switch iCloud Photos ON, on all devices. Not sure why you would switch this off?
2/. On your iMac, go into preferences and enable the option to download originals. This will leave a master copy of everything on your iMac which Time Machine will continue to backup.
3/. On your iPhone, under Photos, select Optimise iPhone Storage. This will automatically delete photos from the iPhone when space is low, leaving just thumbnails. The originals will re-download automatically if/when you need them.

That’s it. Apple put a lot of effort into making this work, and it works really well.

Thanks that sort of makes sense.

I haven't switched it on because I don't want to store all my pics in the iCloud, would fill it up quickly. I'll check it out though and see if it works for me.

I appreciate Apple put a lot of effort in, pity they don't make it easier to understand.

[NoTreadLeft]

megaphone said:

Thanks that sort of makes sense.

I haven't switched it on because I don't want to store all my pics in the iCloud, would fill it up quickly. I'll check it out though and see if it works for me.

I appreciate Apple put a lot of effort in, pity they don't make it easier to understand.

You may find you need to pay for extra iCloud storage but it's one of the few areas where Apple really aren't expensive e.g. 50GB (that's a lot of photos) is only 79p a month. Probably worth it just to know that you won't lose all your photos in the event of fire / flood / burglary.

[Sebastian Tombs]

NoTreadLeft said:

1/. Switch iCloud Photos ON, on all devices. Not sure why you would switch this off?

Because the free storage fills up really fast and that prevents you backing up the phone or updating iOS.

[Kewy]

I'm in a similar situation.

Don't use iCloud Photos due to storage, I currently have 50gb of photos/videos on my phone… so the minimum storage plan I'd need to pay for is the 200gb one I guess?

It's then not exactly clear how the sync works, so if you delete from one device then it disappears everywhere?

I really need to sort out my media management. I have my phone, a Nikon D750 and a GoPro. I don't like mixing photos from my DSLR and my phone, so my D750 is managed through Lightroom. GoPro currently all stored manually in Finder, as are my phone photos/videos.

I'd like to maybe use Apple Photos for all phone stuff (on-the-go photos I like to call them). Then continue using Lightroom for DSLR and create a new Lightroom Catalogue for GoPro.

[malks222]

I have a DSLR and iphone (and suppose back up the mrs iphone too) and also use photos on my mac and also lightroom. my solution for the phones/ photos interface is to make sure that I do it manually, eg it doesnt auto sync.

Yes this may cost me an extra 5/10mins, but that way I'm happy that I'm not duplicating or missing some photos. I basically plug my phone into the macbook. open up photos, press sync, all photos are 'imported' into the 'last import' file or folder. I then drag/ drop/ move them into a specific folder 'malks iphone photos' or if there's a specific set of photos like 'skiing holiday 2019' I'll create a folder for them.

Hope that kinda makes sense....... its just a process i know and use and seems to work for me ok.

[ecsrobin]

I just pay the £6.99 for 2TB if iCloud storage. I then enabled it for family members so we can share the storage seems good value to me for the simplicity of the system.

[Kewy]

malks222 said:

I have a DSLR and iphone (and suppose back up the mrs iphone too) and also use photos on my mac and also lightroom. my solution for the phones/ photos interface is to make sure that I do it manually, eg it doesnt auto sync.

Yes this may cost me an extra 5/10mins, but that way I'm happy that I'm not duplicating or missing some photos. I basically plug my phone into the macbook. open up photos, press sync, all photos are 'imported' into the 'last import' file or folder. I then drag/ drop/ move them into a specific folder 'malks iphone photos' or if there's a specific set of photos like 'skiing holiday 2019' I'll create a folder for them.

Hope that kinda makes sense....... its just a process i know and use and seems to work for me ok.

Yeh thats kind of what I wanted to hear haha thanks! Just felt a bit old school doing stuff manually these days, glad it's not just me.

So, I have another one for you...

I like to keep certain photos on my phone, the best ones and normally stuff to do with the car that I'm always needing to forward on to people. If I manually sync to Photos, then delete a chunk of photos from the phone (or maybe better to re-import the ones I want to keep?), will Photos recognise that and NOT re-import them the next time I do a sync??

[NoTreadLeft]

Kewy said:

… so the minimum storage plan I'd need to pay for is the 200gb one I guess?

Yes it would be - it's £2.49 a month I think.

Kewy said:

It's then not exactly clear how the sync works, so if you delete from one device then it disappears everywhere?

Yes any photo you delete from any device goes in to a "Recently Deleted" album where it stays for 40 days. After that it's gone for good. However you usually only "delete" if you actually want to get rid of the photo rather than to free up space. Freeing space is not really necessary any more as it's only the thumbnails that get downloaded to devices, unless you specify otherwise e.g. I have a 60Gb library in iCloud which takes 60Gb on my iMac (because I download the originals) but only takes about 2Gb on my iPhone.

Kewy said:

I'd like to maybe use Apple Photos for all phone stuff (on-the-go photos I like to call them). Then continue using Lightroom for DSLR and create a new Lightroom Catalogue for GoPro.

Personally I'd use Apple Photos for as much as you can (e.g. iPhone & GoPro) as it's just folders under the covers and you can still see everything in Finder (use the "Show Package Contents" option on the Photo Library folder). The Apple Photos application just makes it easier to manage. I doubt you'll want use Apple Photos for everything though, as Lightroom is a more powerful workflow tool last time I looked.

Afraid I'm not sure on the best way to use both in a workflow - maybe use Lightroom for all your pre-processing and export your final versions to Apple Photos for archival? Or simply sync files from Lightroom to your iCloud drive?

Edited by NoTreadLeft on Wednesday 6th March 17:37

[malks222]

Kewy said:

I like to keep certain photos on my phone, the best ones and normally stuff to do with the car that I'm always needing to forward on to people. If I manually sync to Photos, then delete a chunk of photos from the phone (or maybe better to re-import the ones I want to keep?), will Photos recognise that and NOT re-import them the next time I do a sync??

yes!! next time you plug your phone and go to sync, it will show you all the photographs on your phone, but will show you which ones you have already imported and allow you to only import the new ones.

yep it feels a bit ‘old school’ to do it manually, but i trust it way more. and reckon it takes maybe 10minutes max even from switching the laptop on. so hardly the end of the world. i usually mix it in with taking a back up of my laptop

[Kewy]

malks222 said:

yes!! next time you plug your phone and go to sync, it will show you all the photographs on your phone, but will show you which ones you have already imported and allow you to only import the new ones.

yep it feels a bit ‘old school’ to do it manually, but i trust it way more. and reckon it takes maybe 10minutes max even from switching the laptop on. so hardly the end of the world. i usually mix it in with taking a back up of my laptop

Thats good to hear

I had a fairly productive evening, cleared out my Photos app of all my GoPro media and organised it into folders for now. I then moved my Photos library location on to my external hard drive – I toyed with the idea of turning off the 'copy to library' feature and to manually organise them, I do this for my DLSR stuff in LR, however I decided for the phone stuff it would be easier to let Apple manage my library.

I then imported about 8500 photos off of my old iPhone 7 Plus – ready for me to go through and cull a bunch and start creating some albums. Over time I'm going to import all my old folders of photos from different phones and do the same going back through the years.

I've come up against another problem though – I now have my XR setup and running, I started from scratch rather than restore about 8 years worth of iPhone gunk. Problem is, I now want some of the old photos back on my phone that I took off the 7 Plus. It would seem that the best way to do this is to select the ones I want and Airdrop them over, however this will 'flatten' the images and apply all edits, but not allow me to go back in and tweak edits or make changes to live photos etc.

Is there a way round this or do I just have to accept that all my past images will be flattened on the new phone and only new ones will remain raw?

[malks222]

Kewy said:

Is there a way round this or do I just have to accept that all my past images will be flattened on the new phone and only new ones will remain raw?

No idea I'm afraid. I know you can sync/ copy photographs from 'photos' back onto your iphone. But dont know what state they transfer in. eg- if you've edited them, can you undo this/ re-edit them on the phone, as the original image is still there. this is above me i'm afraid!

[Kewy]

malks222 said:

No idea I'm afraid. I know you can sync/ copy photographs from 'photos' back onto your iphone. But dont know what state they transfer in. eg- if you've edited them, can you undo this/ re-edit them on the phone, as the original image is still there. this is above me i'm afraid!

Hmm okay thanks mate. As far as I know there is no proper way to sync back to your phone from Photos though. It's a case of selecting them and 'sharing' them back via Airdrop for example.

Unless I've missed something.

Going to be a fun couple of weeks getting on top of all this lot

[malks222]

Kewy said:

Hmm okay thanks mate. As far as I know there is no proper way to sync back to your phone from Photos though. It's a case of selecting them and 'sharing' them back via Airdrop for example.

Unless I've missed something.

Going to be a fun couple of weeks getting on top of all this lot

you can, but its a bit clunky. you need create a folder in 'photos' with the pictures you'd like to move back onto the iphone.

you then need to use Itunes, and when you go to the options for syncing, you select the specific 'photos' folder you want synced with the phone, then the photos appear back on the phone.

I've maybe not explained it great but google- 'copy photos from mac to iphone' and you should find enough articles/ tutorials on how to do this. some clickbait articles offering software etc..... but read enough and you'll find out how to do it via itunes.

[Kewy]

malks222 said:

you can, but its a bit clunky. you need create a folder in 'photos' with the pictures you'd like to move back onto the iphone.

you then need to use Itunes, and when you go to the options for syncing, you select the specific 'photos' folder you want synced with the phone, then the photos appear back on the phone.

I've maybe not explained it great but google- 'copy photos from mac to iphone' and you should find enough articles/ tutorials on how to do this. some clickbait articles offering software etc..... but read enough and you'll find out how to do it via itunes.

Ah yeh I've seen this workflow using iTunes, hadn't played with it yet but presumed that is how it would work. I thought you meant you could do it app through Photos.

Well I have plenty to keep me busy now! Thanks for all your help, very much appreciated.