On macOS I have my photos manually organised into folders within the main "Pictures" folder; I don't use Photos or any kind of picture management app.
If I turn in iCloud storage for Photos will it preserve that folder structure in "Pictures"? Or does it all need to be managed by the Photos app in order to sync to iCloud?
It turns out that pictures on iCloud work with the Photos app; photos are "special" and you don't sync the Pictures folder in the same way items on iCloud drive are synced. In order to sync photos to iCloud you need to use the Photos app and copy when importing. If you import photos in-place from an unmanaged location they will not be synced to iCloud.
The application works only with photos saved on iPhotos
