Until then, when my wife wants to see our library, she launches the Google Photos app that is shared with her account. I had previously been using Google Photos as a secondary upload destination, but now that the free version has gone away, I am not sure that I’ll want to pay for additional storage once I hit my 15GB free space. The problem with this method is that my wife cannot see our photo library from her device (to edit, share to Instagram, order photos for Christmas cards, etc.). If she took a random picture of something at the store, I’d discard it. I should mention that I only import actual photos of our kids and other important things. This method keeps all of our photos in one “master library” that can be run through my backup strategy. I will take the uploaded photos (which download to my Mac) and then merge them into iCloud Photos. Another option (what I use) is I have my wife’s iPhone set to auto-upload her camera roll to Dropbox whenever she gets on Wi-Fi.

The problem with these methods is they are manual, and you are likely to forget to keep the master library up-to-date. If you want to share your iCloud Photos with a family member now, you have to use various methods to do this, like AirDrop or iMessage. Keeping iCloud Photos up-to-date with families If your family is like mine, we have _way_ more everyday photos that we need to share vs. iOS 12 did add a “smart sharing” feature, but that is really focused on events and trips (vs. Even with that main library setup, it’s still a very manual process to keep the libraries updated. You have to “designate” one person’s iCloud account as the “main library,” and then everyone else has to make sure to get their photos to them. Currently, families have to use various workarounds to get their photo libraries in “sync” so they can see the entire master library.

I get multiple emails a week from people who are struggling with iCloud Photo Family Sharing. For many people, the iPhone is their primary camera, and therefore Apple needs a way to help families unify their photo library. While Apple does allow you to create shared albums in iCloud Photos, it doesn’t allow a way for families to create a single library for all of their family photos or even easily give another person access to copy photos to their own library.

What’s missing in iCloud Photos family sharing Another year of iOS announcements has come and gone, but yet we’re no closer to the ability for families to properly share their libraries – particularly among spouses. As good as iCloud Photos is, it still lacks a proper family sharing feature to help families unify their photo libraries. It’s built into every iOS, macOS, and tvOS device (and ), and Apple has to be syncing billions and billions of photos and videos across its data centers. ICloud Photos is probably one of the most impressive services that Apple is currently running.

Where does apple photos store photos