Decision sync

Turn on Sync across your devices to carry your photographic decisions between Frames on Mac, iPhone, iPad and Apple TV through your private iCloud account.

Frames asks once, after a library has a source. Sync starts off. You can change the answer later in Settings: open the Settings window on Mac, the gear in the Library sidebar on iPhone or iPad and then Sync, or Settings on Apple TV. Sync Now requests a round immediately. The status says whether changes are up to date, waiting for a connection or need attention.

In iCloud counts what has left this device by kind. Shared settings count together under Settings: the star meanings, the albums you hide, and the creator and copyright lines from Settings › General.

Ratings, keep and reject verdicts, keywords, captions, creator and copyright details, edits and versions, saved searches, looks, export presets, star meanings, composition intentions and marked observations, Frames collections with their folders and order, the albums you hide, the sets you make by hand, and the names of your sources travel between devices. Apple TV receives decisions for browsing and presenting; it does not make choosing or editing decisions. Each device keeps its own local catalogue. Frames syncs the decisions and scene analysis; the catalogue file, originals and previews stay on each device. Photographs may travel separately through iCloud Photos when that service is enabled. Frames syncs which favorites it added, and Macs share one update claim so only one runs Photos favorite changes at a time.

Capture metadata. For details stored in a RAW file, at least one Mac, iPhone or iPad must read that original to extract its EXIF and capture details. With sync on, those details then travel to your other devices. They can show the camera, lens and exposure details even if they have never downloaded the RAW file.

Scene analysis. With sync on, the scene analysis behind search travels with the decisions. The Vision measurements and feature print of each analysed photograph go to your private iCloud account, and your other devices take them in. A photograph one device has analysed is searchable on all of them without being analysed again. The Sync settings show Scene analysis as a row of its own, with the number of photographs waiting to upload. On iPhone and iPad, analysis that runs by itself waits until the device has received what your other devices measured. Apple TV receives scene analysis and sends none. Composition measurements stay on each device.

Pause Sync. Pause Sync in the Sync settings stops sync on this device and leaves the switch on. A scene round under way stops, and changes you make wait on the device. The status reads Paused with the number of changes waiting, and Sync Now is unavailable until you resume. Resume Sync sends and receives everything that waited, decisions and scene analysis together. A pause holds on this device alone.

This is separate from Library sync, which refreshes a device’s local catalogue from Apple Photos or a folder. A photograph or source that is not on a device cannot be opened there just because its decisions have arrived.

Statistics. Open Settings › Library on Mac, iPhone or iPad, or Statistics from Settings on Apple TV, to see the photographs in that device’s catalogue. On Mac the tab opens with the library’s tiles, with sidecars and catalogue recovery below them. The screen shows the total number of photographs, RAW photographs, missing originals, sources, how many have a developed version, keep and reject verdicts, undecided photographs, and counts for each star rating and unrated photographs. A photograph with several developed versions counts once, even when ORIGINAL is selected. Reopen the screen to refresh the figures; on touch devices you can also pull down to refresh. Photos photographs that have left the library and are kept for their saved work count under Missing originals alone; the photograph, verdict and rating totals leave them out. Missing folder originals still belong to the library and remain in those totals. Right-click or long-press Missing originals, then choose Show Missing Photographs to open Browse across the library with the Missing originals search filter. On Mac, find it in search’s rating and status controls; on iOS, find it under Rating and status in Search. It combines with other filters and can be saved as a search.