iPhone XS photos: album says syncing at bottom of screen but never stops and photos are missing.

I'm having the same issue as the rest of you although I move all of my photos off my phone onto an external hard drive and sort them into folders (OCD I guess) then I sync my photos & videos from within iTunes - I have the Syncing message at the bottom of each of the folders with numerous items missing! I have been noticing it for a while but it is now becoming increasingly frustrating! Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

The sync system is completely f•cked up since it's no longer done using iTunes...

My iPhone now says it has 50.876 Photos (while my Mac "only" has 28.448 and 518 videos) and it sais it is still syncing even though it was disconnected after the sync finished... (And this is after doing a complete restore and only one or two syncs...).

NEVER had any issues before and I'm an all time Apple user...

APPLE, WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO TAKE THIS ISSUE SERIOUS AND FIX IT ???

I’ve still got an open case with apple support on this who have so far been fantastic; communicative, proactive and thorough.

All the logs, screenshots and other info are currently with the development team and am waiting to hear back (Chinese New Year delayed things slightly). Will post again when I have more but would strongly suggest calling apple support and raising a case also.

I’m having the exact same issue on iPhone 11 (iOS 13.3.1) while syncing from macOS Catalina .3 version:

Missing photos on iPhone after syncing, on the bottom of Photos on iPhone the message “syncing...” remains there all the time. I’m also missing photos in Photos Folders on iPhone, having issues with synchronising Faces from Mac etc.

I hope this gets fixed soon as it’s been buggy since September!

Would be nice (it's about time...) for Apple to intervene...

I purchased a new iPhone last week (what was I thinking...).

In order to make sure the problems are not inherited from any "old" device, I took the effort (yes, it's a lot you have to do...) to set it up as a completely new iPhone, so not copy any settings that might be at the cause of the synching issues from my previous devices.

After all of that was done I decided to connect it to my Mac for the 1st time and sync my data (tunes and images).

First sync was fine, all the +/- > 28.000 images were there like it should be.

However... today I did the next sync and guess what... it now says it only holds +/- 14.000 images (roughly half of what I have / had...) and below all the images it says it is still syncing, even though the finder "said" it was finished and it was disconnected from the Mac...

So except for the manual setup, this is an exact replication of what happend with a new iPad I installed recently from another iPad's backup...

Getting sick and tired of this...

But it does somewhat make it clear that the problems come from the Mac and not from the iOS devices...?

Or would it be in the way the Mac stores/receives information from the iOS device's photo library?

No probs. I’m calling them every couple of weeks just to check in, and will post here either way to make sure this thread stays open.

In their defence they did say that because so many people had raised the issue they had to make sure that the fix was going to work on all devices etc.... I suppose that makes sense....maybe ;)

Yesterday I downloaded Software Version 13.4 hoping there would be a fix for this issue in it.

Once installed I connected my iPhone to my Mac to sync.

I received a window saying a piece of software had to be downloaded.

I clicked ok, it downloaded and installed it.

So I thought this must be it!

And so I synched.

When the sync was finished I went into photos on my iPhone, selected all photos, scrolled to the bottom of the screen and saw that my device now holds 36.743 photos and that is is still synching, whereas my Mac only holds 28.595 photos...

STILL NOT FIXED

And then came the macOS Catalina 10.15.4 update right after lunch!

Installed it, synched my iPhone again and noticed and liked the improved interface (status bar indicating what it's doing at the bottom of the window).

And then the status bar said "Synching (Step 5 of 6) - Reading Photos library" and I liked it even more, hoping this would fix it! ;)

Once the sync was finished (according to the finder window…), I gave it some more time before checking the iPhone, (leaving it connected to my Mac).

When I first checked the iPhone photos, the photo count was down to >27.000 photos and saying "Syncing...”. 

And a few minutes later 29.506 Photos and "Syncing…"

And this is what it’s still at.

Getting closer, but still not 100% nailed...

The update fixed the continuous syncing problem for me. My photo app no longer says its syncing 24/7. However, there's roughly 100 photos that won't sync from my Mac to my iPhone. It'd be nice if, during the syncing process, the system would throw the problem photos into a separate folder or something. We would then know which photos to troubleshoot. But, alas, it doesn't do that so I'm going to have to compare every photo on my Mac with the photos on my iPhone to determine which photos aren't syncing and why, which is roughly 5,000 photos and videos. Grrrrrr.

Update hasn't fixed my problem. Same photo count post sync...roughly 60% of what should have been sync'd. I'm trying to get confirmation from Apple as to whether they think this update included the fix to the case I raised, or not. I hope not as then it's clearly not worked!

I’m the same - iTunes on my laptop is on the latest version and I Installed the update available to my iPhone XS Max a couple of days ago but all of my photos & videos have not come over to my handset!!! This has been going on for months now - sort it out Apple I paid £1500 for my phone and do not expect to experience such issues!!! I am even thinking about jumping ship .... 😡

How can Apple get this so wrong! I'm syncing right now and it says that it's copying 4,542 photos, all of which are already on my phone! It's copying all photos every time. This is just plain stupid.

Not that I am aware of - still experiencing the same issue which has now been going on for months!!! Very poor support/ resolution from Apple on this bug - I’m also experiencing issues with calls not showing in my Recents unless I switch off and back on. I don’t expect to pay £1500 for a handset to have such issues - I’m at the stage now where I’m considering selling it and going back to Samsung which is something I never though I’d say!!!

I too have the same issue with my iPhone XS Max. I've restored it numerous times, stopped restoring from a backup so totally reset the phone and started new and the issue remains. I'm using a windows laptop and I even re-installed windows without any luck.

If I delete half of the folders so sync 10,000 photos instead of the 24, 000 it works. When I then add more folders I go back to the syncing issue. It's like iTunes or the phone can't handle that many folders or pictures. 13.5 failed to fix the issue.

Just wanted to post because a) I'm glad i'm not the only one with this issue and b) neither are you!

I had this issue as well. I think it started when I tried to sync my entire 12 year photo album to my iPhone 11 pro. The sync seemed to freeze up, so I unplugged, then started getting the constant "syncing..." message. And it started duplicating all my photos on the phone! Annoying. Anyway, I was able to get past it by setting the phone to sync to a Folder instead of Photos. Important side note, all photos from my phone had been sync'd with my MacBook Pro; I just needed all the existing sync'd photos off the phone. The folder I chose didn't have any photos in it, which is perfect as I just needed everything OFF the phone. Once that sync was done, my "All Photos" was empty, so I was able to make a Smart Album with Favorites and last 6 months to sync to the phone. Hope this helps!