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Photos not uploading to iCloud

I'm migrating to a new M1 Mac. I don't have enough space on the internal SSD for all my family photos so I've moved them to an external drive. That all works great so far. I'd like to move them all into iCloud too but it seems like only a selection (maybe those taken on my iPhone?) are in iCloud. How can I get the entire local Photos library backed up onto iCloud. I have the external drive library set as my system library. I have turned on iCloud Photos both in System Preferences, and Photos Preferences.


Posted on Jun 29, 2021 6:13 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jun 29, 2021 8:49 AM

When you say "backed up onto iCloud" do you mean you want the photos in the external drive to also be saved in the cloud? If so, then it should be done automatically since you turned on iCloud Photos. The images should load slowly but at the end it should load. If you log into iCloud via the web-browser, check your photos and check to see if the photos on the external drive are there. If so, things are working properly. If not, I would turn off iCloud Photos on your M1 Mac, eject the external hard drive, turn on iCloud photos again, then plug back the external hard drive. See if there is a prompt to transfer the photos. I hope this helps.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jun 29, 2021 8:49 AM in response to gonzonia

When you say "backed up onto iCloud" do you mean you want the photos in the external drive to also be saved in the cloud? If so, then it should be done automatically since you turned on iCloud Photos. The images should load slowly but at the end it should load. If you log into iCloud via the web-browser, check your photos and check to see if the photos on the external drive are there. If so, things are working properly. If not, I would turn off iCloud Photos on your M1 Mac, eject the external hard drive, turn on iCloud photos again, then plug back the external hard drive. See if there is a prompt to transfer the photos. I hope this helps.

Photos not uploading to iCloud

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