Share every photo to shared library

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Level 1

14 points

Share every photo to shared library

I have been waiting for the new Shared Library feature for ages. I do all of the manual work of combining our family photo library from 4 different people under my account and love that it is now easier. However, I can't seem to find a way to share every single photo that I take into the Shared Library. I have turned on every option to share and it seems to me a picture taken with my phone only gets automatically added to the shared library if I am at home, or currently with the people I share the library with. These selective sharing options are ideal for my kids contributions to the library by my wife and I would rather automatically share everything into the album.

I completely understand the privacy reasons for not always automatically sharing all photos and the flexibility offered with the current setting but I really wish sharing everything was one of the options.

In the absence of sharing everything, having a Smart Album that could tell me which photos are NOT part of a shared album would be very helpful when trying to gather all of the unshared photos and moving them into the album.

Am I missing something obvious on this or is there no setting to automatically share everything?

Ryan.

Posted on Oct 31, 2022 09:29 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

pokypine

Level 1

13 points

Nov 7, 2022 08:43 PM in response to meh..

I was also excited to use Shared Libraries.

It just seemed like the obvious missing feature.

I have read a ton of similar threads of people wanting this for the same reason as me. As a married couple it would be great if the photos from both our phones end up in the same place instead of constantly having to swap photos back and forth. I assumed that this was the main case that Apple was addressing with this feature.

Instead, it seems, they implemented the feature, but forgot to make it automatic.

Really?! You gave us a shared library, but we still have to manually opt into it every time we take a photo?!

Sorry, I mean, every time I take a photo and my phone hasn’t magically figured out that it is near my wife’s phone, or I happen to have actually left my house…

Baby steps, I guess.

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Answer 2

markwmsn

Level 6

16,613 points

Nov 2, 2022 09:24 PM in response to meh..

There is already a way to find the things you didn't share: briefly switch the display to show only your private library instead of both libraries.

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Answer 3

racheals14

Community Specialist

Nov 2, 2022 12:01 PM in response to meh..

Hello,

The behavior you're describing is expected. The "Add photos and videos when Shared Library participants are nearby" and "Automatically add photos and videos taken at home" sections of Add content to an iCloud Shared Photo Library in Photos on iPhone cover the instances where photos would automatically be added to your Shared Library.

If you'd like to share feedback with Apple about this, please do so here: Product Feedback This will ensure it reaches the most appropriate team within Apple for review.

Take care.

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Answer 4

meh.. Author

Level 1

14 points

Nov 3, 2022 10:44 AM in response to markwmsn

That is helpful but my personal library is also cluttered with every photo and meme people send me in iMessage. If I turn off the Shared With Me feature in iMessage this will be a very good work around. I would have preferred a SmartAlbum for this but I can get the job done now.

Thanks for the suggestion markwmsn!

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Answer 5

meh.. Author

Level 1

14 points

Nov 2, 2022 12:24 PM in response to racheals14

As I stated in my original comment, I complete understand the existing options and think they are entirely appropriate. I simply think that an 'Always Share' option or a way to find the things you didn't share seemed to be an obvious use case that was overlooked and I had hoped I had missed something.

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Share every photo to shared library

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