Q: Photos app uploading more photos than I have in my library
I'm looking for help. I have just (painfully, due to my slow internet) uploaded about 40 photos from my iPad into iCloud photos. Once home I did some basic editing, on the iMac, and expected to have to wait for some more uploading. Sure enough, initially it said 'Uploading 13 Items'. Unfortunately, after a few minutes this changed to 'Uploading 6380 Items' (and the progress bar doesn't seem to be going anywhere fast). What is odd is that I only have 5346 photos in my Library and have nothing in the Trash Album. I have tried repairing the Photos database (launching with Option and Command held down) - the same thing happens. My other devices and the iCloud website all show the 5346 photos I'm expecting, just without the last few edits. Any help would be appreciated - particularly as the 5000 photos in my library, when I "upgraded" to Photos from Aperture took 3 weeks to upload!
iMac, OS X El Capitan (10.11.6), 27" Late 2012
Posted on Jul 31, 2016 1:31 AM
Just let it upload. The additional upload after you signed out of iCloud and back again, after you moved the library, or repaired it is essentially just uploading to compare your library to the version in iCloud and to merge new or edited photos into the library. It is scanning for duplicates while uploading and trying to resolve conflicts. It is frequently faster than the initial upload.
See:
Why is iCloud uploading my entire iCloud Photo library again after I moved its location?
Posted on Jul 31, 2016 2:50 PM