Photo albums will not sync to my mac mini - yes on iPhone, macbook and iCloud but not desktop...

It's very frustrating! I have gone to Photos app Preferences, unclicked and re-clicked iCloud photo on/off. I did it off, restarted the mac mini, then back to ON. No change.

I need explicit, step-by-step instructions because I have read at least 10 articles about what to do, including many non-Apple blogs. Nothing I see looks at all like what my desktop shows or the process makes no change.

This is the situation - I have a bunch of albums on my phone, and they are all visible and usable in iCloud, too.

But since I started using my older mac mini (which was in a box for 3 years), I cannot get the albums to sync.