iCloud Shared Photo Library
iPADOS 16 INTRODUCES a much easier way to share images with your nearest and dearest, or indeed with anybody else you fancy inviting: the iCloud Shared Photo Library. This invitation–only library enables you to manually share specific photos or automatically share everything with up to five other people, and they can add their own images to the shared library or edit and even delete yours. The feature requires everybody to be using the most up–to–date OS for their device, which is currently iOS 16 for iPhone, iPadOS 16 and macOS 13. At the time of writing Apple had announced plans to bring iCloud shared libraries to Windows PCs too via its Photos app for Windows 11.
The previous Shared Albums feature hasn’t gone anywhere, but iCloud Shared Photo Library is more trusting of the people you share it with. Everybody with access to this new library has the same level of permissions, so if you don’t want the kids drawing elaborate mustaches on photos of you or deleting the shots they don’t like, then you might want to think twice about using this option over the normal shared albums feature. For the same reasons, if you want to share albums publicly rather than with just your five trusted people, Shared Albums remains the safest way: it doesn’t let others edit or delete the pictures and enables you to share publicly rather than just to specific people.
Once you’ve set up the shared library you can decide whether you want to see its contents integrated with the rest of your Photos library, or you can view each library individually: pressing on the more icon — the three dots at the top right — gives you a choice of Personal Library, Shared Library or Both.
It’s important to note that whoever set up the iCloud Shared Library is the one whose iCloud storage is being used for its images. And for other users, deleting an image doesn’t necessarily mean permanent deletion: the Library creator, most likely you, is notified of deletions as they happen unless you disable that option in Settings > Photos > Shared Library. You’ll then be given the option of moving the deleted image to your personal library instead. Deleted images also remain in the Recently Deleted album.