Sync Photos iCloud Library to second apple id

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Level 4

2,567 points

Sync Photos iCloud Library to second apple id

I had found an earlier post here about connecting a second Apple ID to my Photos Library. It said to have your Photos Library on an external disk (check), set up my iMac with the second Apple ID (my wife's - check), log in with the second Apple ID and then set up the Photos app to use the Photos Library on the external HD (check).

But since it was being done on the same iMac, the Photos Library was already there (over 85K of photos) and it is still "Restoring from iCloud" after about 48 hours. And on her iPhone and iPad (both of which I changed the Apple ID from mine to hers), the Photos app is saying "Updated" but they are showing only around 13K of the entire 85K library (again after about the same 48 hours).

Is this the way it should happen and we just have to be patient? Because in the interim I believe I have to leave her Apple ID logged into my iMac all the time for the updating/restoring to work. Which also means I cannot access the Photos library from my log in.

Need opinions of whether or not I am doing this correctly and just have to be very patient with the process. Thanks.

iMac 24″, macOS 12.2

Posted on Feb 20, 2022 9:03 AM

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Answer 1

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TonyCollinet

Level 7

23,954 points

Feb 25, 2022 3:18 PM in response to swandy

Hi - yes, you are doing it wrong.

You need to first set up a second user account on your mac for your wife, and log THAT user account into your wife's apple ID, and set the external drive library as the system library for that account also.

That way you can use your mac during the day on your account and switch to her account overnight to continue the sync to her iCloud - which does take a long time - leave it on, photos open, connected to power and sleep disabled. For reference, my 5K item 50GB library took 48 hours. You could be looking at up to 3 weeks 24/7 - much more if only overnight - for the 85K photos - depending on the library size.

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Answer 2

swandy Author

Level 4

2,567 points

Mar 24, 2022 1:15 PM in response to TonyCollinet

Sorry I have not checked back on this forum post as I spoke to an Apple Mac tech and he told me what I wanted to do (basically share a Photos Library so if I added photos or she took photos with her iPhone we would both see the additional photos) would not and is not intended to work properly between two Apple IDs. I am not sure what you mean by I was "doing it wrong". I did set up as separate user account in System Preferences and logged that new user to HER Apple ID. And when I was not using the iMac I would log out of my user and then log into the one linked to her Apple ID. And at night I would leave the machine logged into her account with the Photos app open. (Not sure if I had sleep disabled or not.)

Obviously by your estimate and your experience I did not wait long enough. I was just surprised after 48 hours (again not full time with her Apple ID only logged into the iMac) that very little progress seemed to be happening. That's why I called Apple Support and was told that what I wanted to happen would not work successfully and "problems could easily occur with the library".

So went back to the way it was before and made some big shared albums. Not perfect but seems safer in Apple's opinion until they decided to allow sharing of a Photos Library.

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Sync Photos iCloud Library to second apple id

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