"And when you have iCloud Photos turned on, the people you favorite or name stay up to date across your Apple devices."
No, they don't. I have plenty of faces recognized on the iPhone, but on Photos on the Mac, they're not there. Yes, iCloud Photos is on on all devices, including the Mac. How to fix this?
iPhone 12 Pro
I contacted Apple Support about this, spent an hour on the phone. The only way to get the sync back working was to create a new Photos library on the Mac and discard the old one. Fortunately no data appears to be lost.
What was also found out is that according to support, this statement from the Apple support article and my original question, isn't actually true.
"And when you have iCloud Photos turned on, the people you favorite or name stay up to date across your Apple devices."
The People/faces stay up to date across iOS devices only. Apparently, but even Apple support couldn't say exactly, on MacOS the facial recognition is more in-device. Some metadata is still shared, since for example the favourite people on the People folder do sync to the Mac. But it's all not really on 1-to-1.
Lessons learned
1) don't trust marketing speeches
2) rely on Apple Support (usually free)
Hoping this issue will be fixed down the road.
I contacted Apple Support about this, spent an hour on the phone. The only way to get the sync back working was to create a new Photos library on the Mac and discard the old one. Fortunately no data appears to be lost.
What was also found out is that according to support, this statement from the Apple support article and my original question, isn't actually true.
"And when you have iCloud Photos turned on, the people you favorite or name stay up to date across your Apple devices."
The People/faces stay up to date across iOS devices only. Apparently, but even Apple support couldn't say exactly, on MacOS the facial recognition is more in-device. Some metadata is still shared, since for example the favourite people on the People folder do sync to the Mac. But it's all not really on 1-to-1.
Lessons learned
1) don't trust marketing speeches
2) rely on Apple Support (usually free)
Hoping this issue will be fixed down the road.
Hey kylieo,
We see that you're having issues syncing your iCloud Photos between your devices, and we'd like to help!
It looks like you checked out the article about using People album on the Photos app. Have you also checked out this article? Set up and use iCloud Photos
First, let's make sure that you're signed in on the same iCloud account on your Mac. If yes, then try toggling the Photos option by disabling it and then enabling it again under iCloud. This may help push the data onto your Mac.
If you enabled your iCloud Photos not too long ago, please give it some time for the photos to sync through. Depending on the amount of photos and videos you have, it can take some time to sync them all onto your Mac.
Let us know how it goes!
Best regards.
Hi and thanks for the help
I'm logged on with the same iCloud account, yes.
I understand you mean toggling the iCloud Photos option on the Mac? Just a brief toggle or should I wait for a predetermined time for something to happen? Before I dare do this, I'd like to understand exactly what happens, as I don't want to put my 20+ years spanning Photo library in any kind of risk.
Hey kylieo,
Thanks for getting back to us with more information. We appreciate it!
That's a great question and we completely understand your concern. Disabling iCloud Photos basically removes the data from your current device. However, the data is still saved under your iCloud account. As long as you have enough iCloud storage available, the data should still remain in the account. Manage your iCloud storage
Once the iCloud Photos option is enabled, it will download all the data back onto the device you're using to enable iCloud Photos. Depending on the size of your iCloud data, it may take some time to download them back onto your device.
We hope this information helps answer your question!
Let us know if you have any additional questions.
Cheers!
This is what happened:
I unticked the iCloud Photos option from the Mac.
Nothing appeared to happen, no data was removed from the Mac / the Photos app as expected, even after a restart.
Re-enabled the option.
Now Photos on the Mac indicates it is in progress of uploading the full ~25,000 images and videos from my Mac to iCloud and not the other way around as expected! This will take days at current rate.
I really, really hope that this simple procedure didn't mess everything up and leave me with a duplicated library in iCloud! 😖
To add with an update, up to toggling the option, apart from the faces/People not properly syncing, there was NO indication that the Mac would be somehow out of sync with the photos on my iCloud account. All photos or videos taken with other devices appeared on the Mac as well in real time.
Up to now Photos is indicating still trying to send ~18,000 files. Thousands of photos have appeared in a new "Unable to upload" folder in the sidebar which I haven't seen before.
I hope someone could urgently help and advise what to do next, in order to avoid and reverse damage! Should I pause or somehow cancel the process? Something else, please??
Sync across Apple devices not working
