How to enable photo sharing on iPad without deleting 1200 photos from Finder sync?

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Level 1

8 points

How to enable photo sharing on iPad without deleting 1200 photos from Finder sync?

My mom has an iPhone and an iPad on the same Apple ID. Photo sharing is enabled on her iPhone. When I try to enable photo sharing on her iPad, it complains there are 1200 photos from Finder sync that will have to be deleted. These are probably photos originally on my MacBook that I synced to her iPad (via USB cable) many years ago, but I don't know exactly what they were. How can I tell her iPad to keep those 1200 photos and also enable sharing?

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Original Title: Trying to enable photo sharing on iPad complains there are 1200 photos from Finder sync that will have to be deleted. How can I keep those 1200 photos?

Posted on Sep 12, 2025 4:06 PM

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Answer 1

muguy

Level 10

91,190 points

Sep 12, 2025 4:24 PM in response to kensan1234

No. iCloud Photos will remove and replace any photo on the device. As those items were synced using finder, each should still be on the computer used to sync to the iPad.

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