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Q: Some Notes on iCloud Photo Library on a Mac

iCloud Photo Library is a very convenient way to keep photo libraries in sync across several Macs. Most changes done on one Mac will update across all Macs that are also using iCloud Photo Library (let's ignore the iOS devices for now).

Exceptions to the rule:  (Use Photos and iCloud Photo Library on multiple Mac computers - Apple Support)

  • Projects do not sync:  Books, Calendars, Cards, Slideshows
  • Faces thumbnails do not sync, only searchable faces tags.
  • Referenced photos do not upload to iCloud Photo Library at all.

 

A Photos Library needs to be on a volume formatted MacOS Extended (Journaled), if you want to use iCloud Photo Library.  https://help.apple.com/photos/mac/1.0/?lang=en#/pht211de786

 

Not all media items can upload to iCloud Photo Library. If the Photos Library has been migrated from iPhoto or Aperture, it can contain media, that are incompatible with iCloud Photo Library, for example some audio file formats or high resolution TIFF images. These will show as "Local only" at the bottom of the Photos view.

 

Because the iCloud version of your Photos Library may be missing items compared to the local version, restoring a Photos Library from iCloud can be lossy. Always keep a good local backup.

 

Occasionally will Photos start to upload the complete library again to iCloud to compare it to the iCloud version. This new upload may take a very long time. For example,  my library with 36000 photos needed a full week to upload again.

A new upload will happen after the following events:

 

Try to avoid these situations, if possible.  Repeated crashes of Photos can cause a repair of the library, but also permission issues, when using the Photos Library from different user accounts.

MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015), OS X El Capitan (10.11.4), 2,8 GHz Intel Core i7, 1TB SSD

Posted on Mar 27, 2016 10:50 PM

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