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, 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.

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, and the names of your sources travel between devices. Apple TV receives decisions for browsing and presenting; it does not make editing or culling decisions. Each device keeps its own local catalogue. Frames syncs the decisions; the catalogue file, originals, previews and measurements 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.

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 Statistics from Settings on Mac, iPhone, iPad or Apple TV to see the photographs in that device’s catalogue. The screen shows the total number of photographs, RAW photographs, missing originals, sources, how many have a developed treatment, keep and reject verdicts, undecided photographs, and counts for each star rating and unrated photographs. A photograph with several developed treatments counts once, even when ORIGINAL is selected. Reopen the screen to refresh the figures; on touch devices you can also pull down to refresh.