You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!
When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.
When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.
💡 Did you know?
⏺ If you can't accept iCloud Terms and Conditions... Learn more >
⏺ If you don't see your iCloud notes in the Notes app... Learn more >
⏺ If you can't accept iCloud Terms and Conditions... Learn more >
⏺ If you don't see your iCloud notes in the Notes app... Learn more >
I have over 20,000 photos on my iPhone and I have already imported them to Photos on my Mac Book laptop. (I plugged in my iPhone to my laptop and manually pressed import in my Photos app.) If I turn on iCloud, will the photos in my Photos app on my computer be uploaded to iCloud and be duplicated with the same photos that are on my iPhone?
If everything works as it should, then I believe it should recognise the duplicates and not import them for a second time. However, I have seen various reports from other people I think not doing this.
You may wish to create a new library and import the photos through the cloud to that, at the same time as keeping your previous library in a safe stored location, just in case.
If everything works as it should, then I believe it should recognise the duplicates and not import them for a second time. However, I have seen various reports from other people I think not doing this.
You may wish to create a new library and import the photos through the cloud to that, at the same time as keeping your previous library in a safe stored location, just in case.
Thank you Winston. I also saw various reports from other people getting duplicates. I was hoping someone would know if Apple has fixed that and that it really does work now as it should.
I did turn on iCloud with my 20,000 photos already in Photos, and it started to UPLOAD those 20,000 to iCloud (it uploaded about 3,000.) It may have been just comparing them, but I decided not to take the chance of getting 20k duplicates, so I turned it off and created a new library to import the photos through iCloud. I have been keeping my iPhone plugged in to power, and I plugged my computer into an ethernet for the best Internet, but It is going VERY slowly.
(I can't tell for sure, but it seems like there are no duplicates of the 3,000 uploaded from my experiment. I'll try to confirm after all 20k are done.)
Yes, I should've added that my own experience is that duplicates are not copied over, and when there are duplicates it still shows the same number of photos being uploaded and as you say it just compares them, but doesn't actually download them again.
Good to know it worked for you, Winston. I concluded I wasn't willing to take the chance. I think it will take about 3 days for my 20k to upload from my iPhone and sync to my MacBook. I'm getting an iPad in a few days so will have to see how long it takes for those photos to sync through iCloud to that.
Turning on iCloud—iPhone photos have already been imported to Mac Photos—will my photos be duplicated?
