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.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

iphone not syncing photos to icloud

I have an iphone 8 with IOS 13.5.1 that has stopped syncing photos with iCloud. Here's what I've tried so far based on internet searching.

  1. Checked available memory on both iCloud and the phone. Both are at less than half capacity. There is plenty of room.
  2. Checked internet connection. Yep, works fine.
  3. Switched from wifi to cellular. That did not work. Switched back to wifi, still nothing
  4. Tried syncing photos to iCloud with an iPad on the same network. That worked. It's the phone!
  5. Under Photos both "iCloud Photos", and "Upload to My Photo Stream" are checked green. Turned them both off, and then back on one at a time. That did not fix it.
  6. Repeated 5, but this time turned phone completely off (hold side button and turn off slider) after unchecking iCloud Photos and My Photo Stream, turned back on, and turned iCloud Photos and My Photo Stream back to green. Still no resolution.
  7. Did a soft reset of the phone. Still no syncing


So what's left to do to get it fixed?

iPhone 8, iOS 13

Posted on Jun 29, 2020 9:55 PM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jun 30, 2020 11:09 AM

Generally speaking, the pause only seems to present itself when there are a lot of photos to upload (or video). I don't think there is an option to avoid pausing, but I'm not 100% sure.


I usually find it quite handy. I'm a surveyor and sometimes spend several hours taken a thousand or more photos, I wouldn't want the battery going flat before I'd finished because it was uploading the photos. When I've finished and get back in my vehicle and put my phone in the cradle I'm happy for it to start uploading them, so they are only computer when i get back to my desk to start work, on the report.

Similar questions

10 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jun 30, 2020 11:09 AM in response to Protonpusher

Generally speaking, the pause only seems to present itself when there are a lot of photos to upload (or video). I don't think there is an option to avoid pausing, but I'm not 100% sure.


I usually find it quite handy. I'm a surveyor and sometimes spend several hours taken a thousand or more photos, I wouldn't want the battery going flat before I'd finished because it was uploading the photos. When I've finished and get back in my vehicle and put my phone in the cradle I'm happy for it to start uploading them, so they are only computer when i get back to my desk to start work, on the report.

Jun 30, 2020 10:47 AM in response to Winston Churchill

Thanks. There is some progress based on your reply. The bottom of the photo screen said "Upload paused for 1020 items / Resume / Saving Battery Power." At the time the battery was about 90% charged, so I hit "Resume."


When I hit resume I got a message "iCloud Photos updates are paused to save battery. Would you like to resume updates for one hour?" I hit "Resume Updates," and as promised I got one hour of syncing, and it paused again with the same message above.


I checked the battery setting for Low Power Mode, and it is off. Under Battery Health it shows supporting "Peak Performance Capability." Also, it looks like it is trying to upload all photos, although almost all of them are already in iCloud. I only have about 30 photos on the phone that needed to be uploaded to iCloud.


So the new question is how do I set the phone to automatically sync the photos rather than having to manually unpause the syncing every time I take a photo?

Jul 20, 2020 12:42 PM in response to Protonpusher

I am currently facing the same issue with iPhone 8 iOS 13.6.. the photos are not uploading to iCloud. I spoke with Apple Support senior advisor and factory reset my phone. But still the issue is there.

The photos stop uploading and just shows a message "1000 items could not be uploaded to iCloud". I also got the message that my iCloud storage is full but I did check it and there was about 1.5 GB space.

Now I am really confused and dont know what to do.


Protonpusher, can you tell me if you did some additional steps to sync your phone to iCloud?


Others , if you have any solutions please suggest.


Thank you in advance.

Jul 20, 2020 7:02 PM in response to Protonpusher

thank you for your reply Protonpusher.


I actually got the same message you received. But now I don’t see that message.

also I checked my iCloud storage and photos on iCloud, there is 1.5 GB free space. Secondly the latest photo on my iPhone is present on iCloud. Only difference is I have deleted some photos from my phone which are still present on iCloud. I am failing to understand why the photos app keep showing me uploading 1000 items when about 200 would be have to be deleted from iCloud.


Thanks for moving the discussion thread, hoping that would give me some replies and solutions.


thanks again.

iphone not syncing photos to icloud

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.