Photos backup being deleted by iCloud

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Photos backup being deleted by iCloud

Hello,

My MacBook Pro wasn’t too well and I needed to wipe the HDD and start from scratch.

I have 130GB of photos, so before I did this i took a copy of the photos library, and took time machine backups so I could restore.

Unfortunately I’ve managed to somehow get iCloud photos out of sync with the local copy (after I restore), resulting in photos being deleted.

Earlier to day I went into iCloud Photos and deleted everything, restored from the time machine backup, and it started to re sync. Happy days I thought. 10 hours later it said it was completed, but it deleted 3/4 of my library again.

Is there a way I can force the local copy to to take priority over the iCloud copy and thus fully upload? Or is my only option to disable / delete, wait 30 days, and then try and sync?

MacBook

Posted on May 8, 2020 3:05 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

michael_palmer Author

Level 1

8 points

May 12, 2020 2:01 PM in response to chuck_3rd

To close this thread down, I ended up phoning Apple. The resolution wasn’t far off from alex_h1 recommendation.

I created a new empty photos library, synced it with iCloud, and then deleted all photos via the Photos OSX application. Doing it via icloud.com would have taken days!

Once everything was deleted, I then deleted photos library, replaced it with my original library (from time machine) and let things resync.

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Answer 2

brenden dv

Community Specialist

May 9, 2020 3:52 PM in response to michael_palmer

Hey Michael,

Thanks for posting your question about backing up and iCloud Photos. Let's make sure we're on the same page and see about getting this solved.

Did you have iCloud Photos set to store the full sized images on your Mac, or was it optimized to only save a smaller version? You can check this by opening up the Photos app, clicking Photos > Preferences > iCloud, and checking to see if Optimize Mac Storage is selected or if Download Originals to this Mac is selected. This will help you to know if, when you deleted everything in iCloud Photos, if it deleted the only copies you had of the full sized images or if those were also stored on your Mac in their original resolution and format.

Prior to looking into any other steps or options, we probably want to verify the above just to know which version of the photos were stored locally.

Report back what you find out, and we'll go from there.

Be well.

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Answer 3

May 10, 2020 12:26 AM in response to brenden dv

HI Brenden,

I have a Photos Library of roughly 21k photos with take up 130GB (based on the size of the Photos library folder).

If I go back a week (before I wiped the Mac back to factory settings) i backed them up to iCloud and I had "Download Originals" turned on selected. If I viewed my iCloud storage I could verify that a it was taking up 120GB of storage (I'm assuming the discrepancy of 120GB vs 130GB was meta data and edits).

If I restore the Library (either manually or via time machine), when I open Photos I can see all photos, and the file size remains at 130GB.

Keeping things configured to backup to iCloud, with "Download Originals" turned on, after a few hours it begins to sync with iCloud. Overnight the iCloud copy seems to take precedence as it deletes 2/3 of the photos (by moving them to the "Recently Deleted" folder) and removes all of my folder structure. The library size shows the same 130GB, but iCloud shows 52GB.

I have done this 3 times now, and its the same result on each occasion, even down to the number of photos that remain undeleted.

Its almost like there is a partial library on iCloud that takes precedence.

I have since disabled photos being backup up to iCloud, and if I log into iCloud.com, and go into the Photos App, it shows that I have disabled Photos.

In 29 days time, I'm assuming that everything will be wiped and I can start over. Just wondering I there is a way to speed things up?

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Answer 4

chuck_3rd

Community Specialist

May 10, 2020 2:01 PM in response to michael_palmer

Hi Michael,

If you have the originals downloaded to somewhere safe and are wanting to delete everything in iCloud Photos, so you can reupload those items and start over, moving whatever is in iCloud to the trash and deleting them, and then going into the recently deleted folder and deleting those will empty out that section of iCloud. Prior to doing that, you may want to Contact Apple Support and work with a Photos specialist to see if there is another way of doing this the doesn't require deletion and reuploading of such a large amount of data.

Take care. .

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Photos backup being deleted by iCloud

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