Hi Thodoris_9!
I'd like to assist you in your quest, however, in order to use Photos with your iCloud+ 2TB Plan, you will have to put ALL of your photos in Photos. You say you do not have enough storage on your new iPhone 17, but you do (assuming your iPhone is 256GB).
What you want to do is use Optimize Storage.
On your iPhone, go to Settings/Apps/Photos and choose iPhone Storage - Optimize Storage, then choose Optimize iPhone Storage. That way all your photos are stored in iCloud and you only have reference high-quality photos (like thumbnails) on your phone. When you need to edit a photo or you click to make it large, the cloud will bring the full image to our phone and then store it back in the cloud and update all devices that are using your cloud.
Your challenge is to get the photos into Photos and still keep your reference/filing system. I would do it this way, I realize this may take time but in the long run it will be worth it.
Assuming you have not put any photos into Photos yet, this is the way I would approach this task.
- Create Album(s) in Photos that correspond to your current filing system
- One Album at a time, while in that Album in Photos, drag and drop your photos from wherever they are now into that Album in Photos. This will place them in that Album and also in your Main Library.
- Continue doing this for each Folder that you have in your current system until you have all the photos in Photos.
After you have completed that task, your current system is now duplicated in Photos. The biggest difference is that now you can view, search, edit, make new folders, etc. in Photos.
You can view our photos either in an Album or in the Main Library. All photos are always stored in the Main Library unless you delete a photo. Photos you place other places are simply a reference back to the original in the Main Library. They do not take up any more storage.
Your daughters can do the same if they have a filing system they wish to keep.
NOTE: If you/they already have all their photos in the Main Library and no Albums, they will have to approach the task a little different way to avoid duplicates. They may have to propagate their Albums from the Main Library.
The sharing of the photos between all of you is a little more difficult. Unfortunately Apple doesn't make it easy to keep your organization when using a Shared Library. You can set up a Shared Library, however, All of your photos will be in the Shared Library together without any organization other than the sorting or arrangement you choose. Once the Shared Library is set up, you can put photos in Albums from the Shared Library, but they are separate from the Albums in your Personal Library. In the Shared Library, you will be able to sort, and view by Year, Month and All. After setting up a Shared Library, putting photos into the Shared Library removes them from your Personal Library. Note: You have an iCloud shared Photo Library (Main Library), a Personal Library and a Shared Library. So, in order to see your Shared Library, you will have to be in the Main Library (Top of Menu on Mac).
The other way to Share photos is by using Shared Albums, clumbersome, but possible. This would take each of you sharing your individual Albums or making new ones and making them Shared Albums. (Right click on any existing Album and choose "Create Shared Album". Basically what this does is create a duplicate Album that is now saved under the Sharing - Shared Albums. Click on a Shared Album to see the photos from that person. If you wanted to share photos where each of you could edit the photos, then create a Shared Library temporarily till the task is done then put them back into the individuals Personal Library.
Here are some things to read.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=share+icloud+storage+with+3+people&t=osx&ia=web&assist=true
https://www.apple.com/family-sharing/
I trust this has been at least some assistance.
If you have something to say to Apple, you can use this Feedback site: www.apple.com/feedback
