New rules for shared photo albums as of iOS 27?

You can still share albums like previously on devices with older system versions. Then you will be using the free iCloud storage, but the shared photos will be reduced to 2048 pixel on the longest edge, like before and some metadata will be stripped.

The new shared albums in iOS27 and macOS 27 are essentially iCloud links into your iCloud Photos Library, so you need an iCloud Photos Library for this to work. The advantage is, that the Shared albums will no longer contain downsized, optimized copies for sharing, but are sharing your photos as they are, right out of your iCloud Photos Library. we can now set up the shared albums to expire after 30 days, so they will not take up the storage for a long time.

How to use the shared albums on the different system versions is explained here: How to use Shared Albums in Photos on your iPhone, iPad, or Apple Vision Pro - Apple Support

You do not have to upgrade the old shared albums to the new version. If you upgrade them, subscribers with older system versions will no longer be able to see them in Photos, only as a web link. Upgrade your shared albums - Apple Support

rzumbus wrote:

That's a bit sad.

For me, the obvious would have been to offer the option to create an "online version" of the photo library in iCloud, which then only includes the photos that users want to share, and leave the others locally on the devices.

Thought that somebody here might know more about the background on why that has not been the option.

Nobody here knows "why" – but the feature that you want would be something completely new, and different from the way iCloud Photos has always worked.

Apple probably decided to build the new sharing features on top of the existing iCloud Photos functionality, rather than introducing an extra layer of complication to iCloud Photos ("sometimes it stores all your photos, sometimes it doesn't") just for this one corner case.

Especially since there are a lot of people who use iCloud Photos to safeguard their iPhone photos or synchronize those photos to other devices (e.g., Macs) in circumstances that have nothing to do with shared libraries.

rzumbus wrote:…"online version" of the photo library in iCloud, which then only includes the photos that users want to share,

If you're thinking of a free place to store pictures, than you can probably see why that's out.

On the other hand, you might want to look into a Shared Library.. This lets you divide your Photos Library into two parts, personal and shared.

How to use iCloud Shared Photo Library on iPhone or iPad - Apple Support

Sharees have full access, so this is for trusted people only.

You can make suggestions  for Apple here:

Feedback - Photos - Apple

rzumbus wrote: …Do you know why?

Of course, no one but Apple can know why they do what they do.

Guessing, they may have changed the system because people were either misunderstanding or misusing the "Share for Free" system that you liked. Certainly, some people were putting pictures in the Shared Albums and then erasing them from their Library so that they didn't have to pay Apple for storage. People were sometimes disappointed being left with only low resolution pictures with limited metadata, and Apple made less money and got more complaints.

Or maybe most people really wanted to share full resolution pictures.

One thing about iPhones is that they can only have one Photos Library. On a Mac, we can have multiple Libraries. So, if we want, we could copy put low resolution pictures into our System Library to synchronize with iCloud and share. But then the full resolution images would only be available to us on the Mac in our other Mac Libraries.

In any case, while we love to wonder why, these can be only guesses, and Apple isn't telling why.

It may be that you are misunderstanding the point of iCloud Photos. It is not designed to be a place to put a few of your pictures-- that sort of thing might be for Drop Box and similar services. The purpose of iCloud is to let you have access to your files and pictures on all of your connected devices. I can edit pictures on my Mac, and I can be sure that I can finish cropping some on my iPhone, and I can show them to my friends and family on my iPad.

As an additional service, iCloud also offers Optimized Storage, which is great for smaller mobile devices. So, if you don't need either of these two services, iCloud may not be for you.

This has some stuff about what iCloud Photos does and doesn't do:

https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-250011400

Hi Léonie,

thanks for your initial reply and the above information.

I am actually looking at shared albums using my iPhone after having upgraded to iOS27 version, so unfortunately I cannot use the "old" shared album logic anymore (at least not for new shared albums).

Also, I do not need the photos to be shared at full size/ resolution and with all metadata - the reduced / downsized photos from the "old" logic were just fine for sharing.

In this context, I do not understand why the new "sharing logic" does not seem to offer the possibility to just share the pictures to iCloud that I actually want to share, but instead, I need to synchronize my complete photo library (which contains many many photos and videos, most of which I do not need in the cloud/ to be shared)?

Do you know why?

That's a bit sad.

For me, the obvious would have been to offer the option to create an "online version" of the photo library in iCloud, which then only includes the photos that users want to share, and leave the others locally on the devices.

Thought that somebody here might know more about the background on why that has not been the option.

Thanks for your comments Richard!

As far as I see, the "Shared Library" functionality is only available if I activate the "iCloud Photos" synchronisation which leads to ALL my photos being sent into the cloud.

However, in my case, I do not want/need the 500 GB of photos & videos that I have, all saved in the cloud, if I only want to share a very small part of that with other people...

And most of my newer pics are on the iPhone, so the functionality with multiple photo libraries is not relevant here either, unfortunately...

I would guess that more Apple customers have the same "challenge"... but who knows.

Maybe I manage to send a note to Apple in the "Feedback" link that you mentioned... but not sure how big of an effect that may have.

Richard,

I have been using iCloud in years to share some photos from common trips / events etc. with good friends.

That has worked well and I deemed it to be an excellent offer by Apple, as the sharing is much more integrated, safe and uncomplicated than using other non-Apple products like Dropbox for example.

For me as a customer, one of the strong points for Apple products / services is that they are usually well connected, easy-to-use, smart and stable.

That are some of the USPs of using Apple.

I am also willing to pay for these services, but only where it makes sense to me, e.g. for the pictures that I want to share.

So this recent step of Apple to restrict the sharing option to customers that upload their COMPLETE photo library to the cloud does not seem consistent to me, and it certainly sacrifices one of Apple's main USPs in this area.

Also, I would doubt that the only purpose of iCloud is to let you have access to your files and pictures on all of YOUR connected devices. Then it would not make sense at all that Apple offers the option to share photos with OTHER people.