ICloud Photos family sharing: a glaring weakness for Apple

iCloud Photos is probably one of the most impressive services Apple runs right now. It's built into all iOS, macOS, and tvOS (and iCloud.com) devices, and Apple has to sync billions and billions of photos and videos across its data centers. As good as iCloud Photos is, it still lacks a proper Family Sharing feature to help families unify their photo libraries.

What's missing in iCloud Family Photo Sharing

While Apple lets you create shared albums in iCloud Photos, it doesn't allow families to create a single library for all of their family photos. For many people, the iPhone is their primary camera and therefore Apple needs a way to help the family unify their photo library.

I get several emails a week from people who are having difficulty with iCloud Family Photo Sharing. Currently, families have to use various workarounds to sync their photo libraries so that they can see the entire main library. You need to "designate" someone's iCloud account as the "master library" and then everyone should make sure to send their photos to them. Even with this master library setup, it's still a very manual process to keep libraries up to date. iOS 12 added a “smart sharing” feature, but that's really event and travel focused (vs. everyday photos).

Keep iCloud Photos Up to Date with Families

If you want to share your iCloud photos with a family member now, you have to use different methods to do this like AirDrop or iMessage. The problem with these methods is that they are manual and you will probably forget to keep the main library up to date. Another option (which I use) is that my wife's iPhone is set to automatically upload her camera roll to Dropbox whenever she uses Wi-Fi. I'll take the uploaded photos (which upload to my Mac), then merge them into iCloud Photos. This method keeps all of our photos in a "master library" which can be run through my backup strategy. I must mention that I only import real photos of our children and other important things. If she took a random photo of something at the store, I would throw it away.

The problem with this method is that my wife cannot view our photo library from her device (for editing, sharing on Instagram, ordering photos for Christmas cards, etc.). I used to use Google Photos as a secondary download destination, but with the news that the free version ends next year, I'm not sure I want to pay for additional storage once I hit my free space. 15 GB. Until then, when my wife wants to see our library, she launches the Google Photos application which is shared with her account. This method is a complete hack, but it's the only way I can have our libraries in one place, and we both have access to them.

My wife is currently signing into my Google Account to view our library, but even though she didn't want to, Google fixed this issue with a feature called Partner Sharing.

You can share photos of specific people or share photos from a specific date. The photos will be shared automatically as they are saved to your account.

As you can see in the photo below, Google has completely solved this problem with several sharing options. Sharing photos of only specific people is very well done because Google's facial recognition software is top notch.

How Apple Could Handle iCloud Family Photo Sharing

As the iOS 15 rumor mill heats up in the coming months, I've heard nothing to indicate that Apple will resolve this issue soon. Switching to Google Photos would be an easy fix for families struggling to keep their merged / up-to-date libraries. Nonetheless, this negates the benefits that iCloud Photos brings to a person using all Apple devices.

Sign in to a different iCloud Photo account for Family Sharing accounts

A little-known feature of iOS is that you can use a different App Store account than your normal iCloud connection. I'm taking this because my main app purchase history is an old Gmail account that I had even before iCloud became a product. This feature is related to Family Sharing, as I share purchases from this account with the rest of my family. Apple could allow users who want a single library to sign in to a different iCloud Photo Library than their primary iCloud account. In my situation, my wife would be logged into my iCloud account for photos. While she can "junk" my library with random photos, I could easily delete them to keep our iCloud Family Photo Library clean of photos we don't need. I prefer this solution of having to process them all manually on my laptop.

Share from face scan

Another idea to solve this iCloud Photos family sharing problem would be to designate the faces I want in my wife's library. This would mean syncing face information in Family Sharing. The way I envision this working would be if I could say that I want photos of these 5 people (my family) to be automatically added to my library on iCloud. The downside of this solution is that I would miss out on other photos and also have to wait for her iPhone to perform the face scan (this happens when the iPhone is on charger and Wi-Fi).

Read-only access to iCloud photos for families

Apple could also allow family members to have "read-only" access to other libraries associated with Family Sharing. It would also allow parents to keep tabs on what their children are doing. If this was enabled, I would be able to go to my wife's iCloud Photo Library and copy whatever she took that I want to save to my library. She could do the same if she wanted something I had taken to share on Instagram or send to be printed. Of all the methods I have come up with to let Apple allow families to share iCloud photos, this is probably my favorite option. This allows me to control what is in my library, which allows me to do so from within iOS.

Another way to help is with death. I have long been paranoid about my wife losing access to our family photo library in the event of her death. I have a shared (password protected) note on how to access my devices and which friend to call to make sure she has access to everything. If she had read access to my library with the ability to copy photos / videos to her library, we would make sure someone would always have access.

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Whatever Apple does to fix this problem, it must be easy. My current method requires a third-party service to do the job. Uploading my wife's photos to Dropbox isn't ideal, but it's better than having the AirDrop for myself. We also pay for storage. We are already connected to family sharing. It's time for Apple to fix issues with families sharing and syncing photos and videos, which has been a problem since iPhoto version 1. are still faced today. Hopefully we get a resolution in 2021 as I get emails every week on the best way for families to share photos on iCloud.

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