Hi, I’m in the process of moving files to iCloud but I want to ensure that photos when taken are placed in a specific folder, for example I’d like all the photos taken in 2022 to be placed in a folder called 2022.
I don’t know what will happen if I just turn on iCloud photos and I want the option to move away from iCloud in the future, I’d rather iCloud fits in around me then me it so to speak.
I don’t mind using a third party app if that’s what’s recommended, or maybe there’s some kind of automation for this. TIA
iCloud Photos is not the same as just having the photos available. If you stick things in to Photos, it deals with it as it sees fit and you don’t want to delve in to the filesystem to view the photo - it’s there somewhere but you’d have to find it. Photos is designed to manage and store the photos and keep everything in the background for the user.
iCloud folders are just like folders elsewhere on the Mac, so you can drop photos in there and they will sync between devices - however, you can’t view them in the Photos app on an iOS device.
Hazel can automate putting files in to folders on the Mac and if you’re using an iPhone, then you can use Photosync to put them in to the folder on iCloud from the phone itself automatically.
My workflow is that I have iCloud Photos OFF on my iPhone and this uses Photosync to place them in to a folder on iCloud (I could equally use Dropbox or Onedrive for this). My Mac then sorts them out into HEIC and JPG photos (as Photosync uploads a copy in both formats for me). The HEIC ones then get moved into Photos and uploaded to iCloud Photos, and are viewable on the Mac, MacBook, and my iPad. The JPG’s are filed in a non cloud folder in Year/Month Folders