iPhoto management for multiple Apple IDs

This topic had in my mind for a long while, I hate losing valuable pictures in my family but I hate to spent unproductive time organising photos then necessary. Hence, I had been sharing an Apple ID with my parents just because is easy for me to manage the photos they took. I can view the photos they took, delete if I want (you can imaging how blurring photos) and backup without touching their devices. This was back in iPhoto stream days and I had the streaming function enabled. Life was great except I need to make sure the FaceTime, iMessage etc etc account selection for all apps are set up correctly cross all the devices (I believed we had 8 devices on the same Apple ID at one time).

However I had threw this perfect setting out, when the new function – sync phone call cross the devices come alone. Don’t give me wrong, I love the convenience of able to pick up a call from everywhere but things start to get crazy when one phone ring all the devices are ring and we don’t know whose call is it. Its time had to create a seperate Apple ID for them.

I would really recommend set up a Family account for this situation so minimum work to handle the 2nd Apple ID. A Family Account or not is not relevant but sharing photos between 2 different Apple ID there is just no sexy way to do this. I had spend time researching and thinking a long term solution to mange the photos between different Apple ID while all the technology still changing and Apple still working out the iPhoto stream-icloud configuration. I believed I had found a workable solution.

Here are the steps:

1. Set up a Dropbox account in their ISO / OS devices
2. Make sure they turn on the “Camera Upload” automation (which is a default anyway), and open the dropbox time-to-time syncing the photos on devices to Dropbox
3. Import the photos from Dropbox account to your iPhoto account
4. Remember to clear the photos you imported from the Dropbox so keep it organised and clear for the upload of next batch.

Hope this helps. It certainly a big time saver for me and never losing a great memory.