How to merge two iCloud Photo Libraries

lulu0915 wrote:

I'm not sure exactly what you want. Do you want one of the iCloud Libraries to have all the pictures, or not? In any case, you should make backup copies of both Libraries on an external drive. There are lots of ways you could get end up with a mess.

Exporting pictures and re-importing individual picture files throws away lots and lots of information. I wouldn't do that.

How can I get the rest of his photos from iCloud onto library B and then merge the two A & B so it’s one library? Does he need a separate login on my MacBook and then set up library B to download his originals? can I then merge the two?

It sounds like you know what you're doing. I think I would set up a UserHusband and do just as you suggest-- just so you don't have to switch machines. Then you have two complete local versions. Or you do as -Bubba- says, and get his complete Library on his drive.

If you want all the pictures on your account on iCloud.com, then the easy way to merge them is to let iCloud do it for you. On your machine, change the System Library to Library B (on computer A signed in to iCloud A). Then Photos will send all the new pictures (B) to your iCloud A, and then Photos will copy all the old pictures (A) to Mac A's Library B. Mac A's Library B will be fully merged as will iCloud A. No pictures will be deleted, and Photos will do its best to avoid duplicates. [Man, that sounds complicated, but it's really just the A and B that makes it hard to keep straight!)

If you want to merge the Libraries but not put the husband set on iCloud, then you can use the trusted 3rd party app PowerPhotos ($40) to merge the Libraries. Outside of using iCloud, this is the only way of merging two Libraries without losing album and folder organization. If you end up with more than one Library, PowerPhotos is best way to handle them.

While it sounds like you have experience, this may have useful information:

Make a New System Library connected to iC… - Apple Community

Let us know what you're doing…

lulu0915 wrote:

I have one photo library A in an external drive connected to my iCloud account.

I have another photo library B on the external drive that used to be connected to my husband’s iCloud account and has in it half of the photos from his iCloud account. It hasn’t been downloaded to for a while.

How can I get the rest of his photos from iCloud onto library B and then merge the two so it’s one library?

Your husband needs to log in with his Apple ID on your/a Mac, then open Photos > Settings > iCloud and choose 'Download Originals to this Mac' to download all the photos to his library. Then, log back in with your account and import his photos library into yours with these instructions (he'll need to turn off his iCloud Photos first).

If for some reason that doesn't work, you can always export his entire photo library as loose files and import them into your library like normal.

lulu0915 wrote: I want one library with pictures from both accounts, then I want to clean it up, and then upload that library to my iCloud.

If I download each of our libraries A&B (with husband own acct) and then merge them with powerphotos, can I sync that merged library with my iCloud and have that only upload?

You can set the merged Library as your System Library. Then all the new pictures that aren't in iCloud will be sent to your iCloud Photos Library.

But will the existing photos on iCloud then download again into the merged library? I don’t want photos I have deleted already to be redownloaded from iCloud once I sync merged library with iCloud.

Photos will do its best to avoid duplicates. It works very well, but if one version is IMG_1234.jpeg and the other is IMG_1234.png, then you may get them both. For merging it's looking to avoid exact duplicates.

Your workflow looks fine.

Here's another thing: You'll have multiple Libraries, and on a Mac that works great! As you know, only the System Library can be connected to iCloud, and you don't want to go switching that around, since Photos will just keep adding every picture it sees to iCloud Photos.

What many of us do is to have a "Favorites Library" that has the pictures that we want to share with friends and relatives using our other devices, and which doesn't have the other pictures that we'd like to keep, but which don't add much to our "story." So, for instance, I have a Library of old pictures of my wife's family, including countless similar versions of the same events, and I've copied the best ones to "Favorites." I have another Library of my family pictures, and I have a Library with some work type pictures, and a Library for the year we lived in London, and a Library of just the pictures I take with my Nikon, and so on. Only the best ones make it to "Favorites," and that's the System Library.

Favorites is certainly smaller than and easier to organize than having the whole bunch in one basket. It's small enough (about 150 GB right now) that I can keep Favorites on my MacBook rather than having an external drive dangling from my laptop. I don't throw pictures away, but I transfer them to and from Favorites. The Archive Libraries can be kept on external drives.

You can start with the giant merged Library, make a copy, name the copy "Favorites," and start deleting with no guilt, because you know that they are all preserved in the original merged copy, and you can change your mind later. New pictures made with your phone automatically go into Favorites, since that's your System Library, and you just copy those to the Archive Library, keeping the best ones in Favorites. All this is made way way simpler using PowerPhotos to handle the different Libraries.

Choosing Favorites becomes a really important part of the process. This is how I do that:

Choosing Favorites using Keywords in Mac Photos - Apple Community

With lots of pictures, organization become really important, too. Here are some ideas:

Organizing photos with Folders & Albums - Apple Community

Too much??

lulu0915 wrote:

when he logs into my MacBook with his Apple ID how do we designate the library B on the external drive as the one to download to?

Make sure the Photos app is closed, then find his photos library on the external drive (should look like "[name].photoslibrary") and double click it to open.

Also Is there no option to merge two photos libraries rather than import one into the other?

There is, it's the first option I suggested: Import photos from another library in Photos on Mac - Apple Support

Downloading the files and importing them manually was just mentioned as a possible backup if the merge didn't work.

You could also set up then Shared iCloud Photos Library. If you invite your husband to the shared iCloud Photos Library you can see his photos when you open Photos in your user account and he can see your photos . Both of you can move photos you want to share to he shared iCloud Photos library, but also keep keep private photos in your personal library that will not be shared, because they are private or are of no interest to your spouse, because they are related to your work or similar.

See: How to use iCloud Shared Photo Library on your MacApple SupportOfficial Apple Support

I would start with a copy of the merged Library, call it Favorites, and make it the System Library. Then do the deleting. The pictures you delete will be deleted at iCloud, as well. The original archive library keeps them safe, just in case.

When merging Libraries with iCloud, Photos avoids exact duplicates. So if anything is different, you get them both. However, Photos has its own duplicate finder, and it will show you two pictures it thinks are the same, even if they have different resolutions or different filenames -- it's based on the image itself. Then you can decide which to keep. I can decide for you, but this is a little flaky, since you don't know for sure what you'll get. So we usually try to take some control over it by copying keywords, captions, and stuff to make the one we want to keep have all the good parts of the other. Photos has a "Merge" command that will put the keeper into all the albums that either was in. Of course, it's hard dealing with these "similar" duplicates-- sometimes the differences are things we actually like, so we keep them both.

Do look into the "Shared Library" that léonie suggested. That may be what you need, though it can work with the Favorites Library, too. The general idea is that you keep one giant Library, but divide a part of it off to share. You switch between the "personal" Library and the "shared" library, and you move pictures from one part to the other. The shared person sees only the shared part, but he has full control over it with you (though he apparently can't delete from Recently Deleted.) I don't use this, so I'm not sure I get all of it. But it sounds pretty cool.

You are in full control over what will go to the shared library. It will depend on how you set it up.

I have set up mine to share only the items that I select and share manually. For example, you could just select all items in the Favorites album together with ⌘A, then ctrl-click them and use the command "Move to the Shared iCloud Photos Library". Or start by moving items from selected albums or smart albums.

After you have set up a Shared Library, you will have a toggle switch in your library, where you can switch between the Shared Library, the Personal Library, or view the photos from both libraries together.

I am using the Shared library to have a show case for my best photos. When I am showing photos to others I switch to the Shared Library, where I am keeping only photos worth showing, that I have already edited and tagged.

Some people want to share everything automatically and do not want to hand-pick the shared items individually. You could set up the library on your iPhones or iPads to share each and every photo automatically in the shared library, sight unseen. But that could become embarrassing, if you accidentally trigger the camera and take videos of the inside of your pocket. And all others will have to endure the flood of useless photos on all their devices.

There are two problems with the iCloud Shared Library, that you should discuss with your spouse before you decide to go down that road:

• The structure: The iCloud Shared Library is only sharing the media, but not the structure of the library. When you move a photo out of your own iCloud Photos Library into the Shared iCloud Photo Library, only the item will be moved, but not the albums and folders. You will still be seeing all your photos and videos in the albums you created, but not your spouse. The others will only see a flat list of items and need to organize the shared items in their own albums.
• The adjustments and metadata: Every participant can modify the shared items and change the titles, captions, keywords, adjustments and even move shared items to the trash. If your tastes differ, how photos should be tagged or developed and which photos to keep, do not use a shared iCloud Photos Library or share only duplicates.

I wrote this user tip, when the shared library first came out, but it has not changed since then, so it is still current: Things to consider when setting up the Shared… - Apple Community

léonie wrote: I wrote this user tip, when the shared library first came out, but it has not changed since then, so it is still current: Things to consider when setting up the Shared… - Apple Community

I had read this a while back, and this is all fascinating-- I spent some time last night wondering what advantage a Shared Library could be for me. It sounds like you are essentially making a single Album with pictures you want to share, but unlike an album, the pictures don't remain in your (personal) Library. To get to those pictures, you switch from your personal Library to the "other album" Library. I have 17000 "favorites." (I'm trying to whittle that down!) That would be a big album with no structure! For the shared-with non-creator, does this "shared album" have full Photos control over sorting, showing face names, and so on? Does the sorting, etc, have to be the same in everyone's view?

I have, let's say, an Archive Library that has all my pictures, and a Favorites Library that has just the, well, favorites. So the favorite pictures are in both Libraries, with the Archive being kind of a backup. This is awkward for me, because I tend to edit and improve the favorites, but the ones in the Archive don't change, so I end up with different versions. In a Shared Library setup, those would both be in the same System Library, and so I wouldn't need two copies of the favorites, and I wouldn't end up with two versions of them.

But when I look through my "personal" Library, I would see none of my favorites, I guess. So if I wanted to go through "Grand Canyon Trip 2010," for instance, I'd have to pop back and forth between the two Libraries. Is that right?

Also, right now, the Archive pictures use lots of hard drive space, but they don't use any iCloud space at all. With the "shared" setup, all my pictures would be in iCloud, where I'd be paying an extra $10/month, or something, for pictures I don't really look at very often.

I do (nearly) all editing on computers that have access to all those Libraries-- I don't do much on other devices. But really, if I suddenly see I need to change a caption or fix an adjustment, I can do that on my iPad, since it's connected to my account. I'm not sure I see an advantage, there.

The big advantage, of course, would be that other Apple users could switch over and see those favorites anytime they wanted. That's very cool. (And they could edit them without telling me…) Non-Apple people, I guess, would get an Apple account and view the pictures on a browser. But the lack of structure seems to mean that the Shared Library can't be too big.

So it looks to me like, if my wife were into editing, a Shared Library could be pretty useful, especially for recent pictures. If she just likes to look at pictures but not edit, then not so much.

I'm just thinking about all that. Is this about right?

Yes, it is essentially right.

Only the behavior of the albums and structure is a bit confusing.

Once you have set up your Shared Library you will not notice any difference on your Mac or your devices with respect to the albums and shared albums. Your photos and videos will remain in the albums you have added them to, even after you move them to your Shared Library. And as long as you have set the view to "Both Libraries" you can see all your photos like before. Only, the photos shared to you by others will clutter up the "Both Libraries" view. I recommend to add a keyword "My Photos" or similar to all photos you share, so you can filter the Shared Library or "Both Library" for your own photos.

For me, the advantage is having two compartments in my library that can be shown separately or combined. I could separate work related items from private items, or right now I am separating the items that still need organizing and developing from the finished items. On my iPad and iPhone it is the only way of having to separate photo libraries.

I would use the shared iCloud Photos Library only with people I can trust to keep my photos safe, because we will most likely share our best and most important photos. And sharing them in the Shared iCloud Photos Library will move them out of our personal library. We need to be able to trust the others to treat them carefully. Otherwise we need to keep copies.

léonie wrote: Only the behavior of the albums and structure is a bit confusing.

Ahh-- that clears up much of my confusion. The shared library is really like having an album shared. And if you have "both libraries" turned on, then you just have an extra album with a mix of pictures. The "mix" can be resolved with keywords, and thus with the Filter function.

And one more limitation: at least two features are not working at all, when we are not viewing "Both libraries".

• "People & Pets" are only available, when we switch to the "Both libraries" view.
• "Duplicates" are only available when viewing "Both libraries".

So our partners for Shared Library need really to be considerate and not clutter up the Shared Library with each and every picture they take.