Syncing between Mac and iPhone stuck at "Reading Photos library"

Update: Last email from Apple Tech yesterday offers no help. I am told they are working on it.

My iPad (pro 10.5" with latest IOS) does exactly the same thing.

Since its not critical for me, I restored it (clean wipe to factory) and then reinstalled IOS 14.6 and then I restored my Apps, libraries... from my latest backup. No dice. Same problem syncing stuck at "reading photos library"

Since the tech told me that the message is during the reading the "devices" photos library, I manually erased all my iPad photos (photo library has now 0 photos) and emptied the trash can so that no photos were left. Again, no dice.

I now have an iPad with all my apps back in place but no photos left and no way to add new books or music ( the old books and music are still there but the pics that I erased manually are gone of course with no way to add them back from my iMac library.

I don't intent to repeat this process with my iPhone 12 Pro.

This is a serious software glitch that I hope Apple addresses soon, which is likely in Version 11.4 of Big Sur.

I 1000000% Agree with all of you. I'm seriously considering taking to twitter on this. I spent upwards of two hours the other day on the phone with a "senior advisor" that was going to escalate this to their tech department. I am supposed to get a reply by July 5. I mentioned the fact that I KNOW I'm not the only individual encountering this issue but they claim that this was and is the very first time they have addresses my specific issue. I was about to scream! Not please in the very least. If any of you have any kind of ability to take to twitter I would greatly appreciate it as well- I don't want to be the ONLY disgruntled customer that seems to be having this issue because when I speak to these "supervisors" All 5 I spoke too were completely perplexed and in dismay that they could have anything wrong or glitches with their software. Instead it's all ME and all My software on the computer I own - I have heard it all from It's dropbox issues to adobe software. which both of those things have ZERO to do with reading photo libraries or my phone. We need to band together and get them to address their glitch.

A few weeks ago I spent 3 hours on the phone one day with one support person, then another 2 hours on the phone the next day with another support person. I sent them screen shots and videos of this issue and they never were able to find a solution that allowed me to sync photos to my iMac. I am very disappointed in Apple Support on this topic which usually is pretty good with other issues. I gave up and decided, instead of syncing photos directly to my computer which I was always able to do previously, to purchase more space on iCloud and move all ~15,000 of my photos there. That generated a different problem of duplication of older photos every time I upload new ones. But, I simply don't have any more time to devote to this, so I'll just ignore the duplicates. I have this feeling that the reason Apple is dragging their feet on the syncing problem is that they want users to buy more space on the Cloud and migrate data there because that generates revenue for them.

Same issue here. It must be something with the library, when I switch to a different user on the MAC (test), there is no problem to sync from MAC to iPhone. Sr advisor suggested to create a second photo library (in my own user space), and export/import from the original library to the second library, and that worked, however it creates 'referenced' pictures, not what I want, as referenced pictures have their own set of issues. I reported this back...let's see what comes back. I don't want to use iCloud.

I'm having the same issue. The sync is stuck on "Reading Photos library". The "Skip Photos" button doesn't work. I tried deleting every photo on my iphone -- didn't help. I don't have a "iPod Photo Cache" to delete, so that is no help. When the phone was doing a general backup in step 1, I was able to rush over to the Photos tab and uncheck "Sync photos to your device...", but I don't know if it will stick, because the "Apply" button is grey, can't choose it. Even if it IS still checked, it is set to sync only one small album.

My photos library on my MacBook IS large, but I should be allowed to have a large photos library and still be able to sync my iphone 12-mini.

A related problem. Since there is NO WAY to stop it, none of the buttons work, and the iphone won't eject either. And I can't restart the computer while it's "reading photos library" because I get the message restart won't happen until the finder finishes its task -- and we all know that will never happen. So to get my phone back, I have to just take the cable out.

I hope a solution is found soon.

Steve, thank you for trying to help, but unfortunately, it didn't help.

I have searched my entire mac system and external drives for anything with the name "iPod". I have nothing, so I can't delete nothing. I have rebooted everything, restarted everything a dozen times. It doesn't help. I can't enable iCloud Photos on my iPhone because I get an error message: "More iCloud Storage Needed. This iPhone is storing 6.7 GB of photos and videos......" so I would have to pay apple $$$ to get more storage.

BUT this is another BUG because I only have ONE small picture on the iPhone. I deleted all photos and videos yesterday, and have rebooted the iPhone twice since, yet it still thinks I have almost 7 GB of photos on the iPhone. Where could they be?

So NOTHING works and everything is so BUGGY. I just want to get my new music on the iphone before my vacation, but I can't sync it.

Thanks Steve, for your offerings of help. I appreciate it.

FIXED!!! You did it Steve!

What solved it was activating iCloud Photos. I know I said the phone claimed I didn't have enough space on iCloud for 7 GB of photos, and I said that I had deleted them all yesterday. Well, who knew -- I had to EMPTY the trash of the photos. I plowed around on the iphone, trying to figure out where I had 7 gb of photos, and then I found the trash full of the photos I deleted yesterday.

Who knew syncing an iPhone could be SO HARD. SO COMPLICATED. With so many steps and reboots and searching all the nooks and corners in the iphone.

And now I'm forced to have all my pictures to go to iCloud? I don't want that because I live rurally, and have limited access to wifi, and cell phone data is expensive. But anyway, I have my music synced, so I know how to do it in the future -- just delete all my photos and empty trash and turn back on iCloud photos. Why does it have to be so hard?

Identifying and removing reference photos did not work for me. I tried identifying reference photos in my ~20,000 photo library. It only found one. I removed it, but still could not sync with out it getting stuck on "Reading Photos Library."

The problem is ( at least it was for me) with Referenced photos as pointed out by Eric Lane and others.

The last Mac OS update screwed up the syncing if the photos library has any referenced photos.

I had about 12K photos or older (referenced), a legacy of the switch over from Aperture to Photos (apparently).

I compiled the referenced pics using the create New Smart Album feature.

Then I had to go to old backups (I keep everything even old CDs with originals) and one by one erase and copy several older albums with missing photos.

It took a while, but got all the referenced photos out of the library.

Once the photos library detected 0 referenced photos the syncing proceeded with no more problems.

I am very disappointed that Apple Tech support did not flag the Referenced photos as the issue early on and wasted a lot of my time and others too.

The only positive thing about this is that now my library is complete and and I can edit older pics that before could not be edited because they were referenced. I also got to revisit some of these older pics bringing back older memories.

Can you tell me exactly how you "compiled the referenced pics using the create New Smart Album feature"? I created a new Smart Album, and specified that it should "Match the following condition: Photo is referenced." Out of approximately 20,000 photos in my Photo Library it found only one matching the condition that it was referenced. I simply deleted it, but I still could not sync with out it getting stuck on "Reading Photos Library." Any further advice would be appreciated.

Well, I did what you just did and found 12K of old pics that where flagged referenced. after I deleted them and copied the originals and made sure that the query of referenced pics was "0", my sync problem went away.

If you do the query again do you get "0" pics referenced? Make sure this is the case.

Otherwise, I am at a loss for the your continuing problem with syncing.

I just upgraded to Big Sur 11.5, and guess what -- they did NOT fix it. I haven't been able to sync my phone for weeks. I can't get any of my new music on my phone. It just gets stuck reading photos library. Darn!!! I thought for sure they would fix it in this update.