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User profile for user: PAfromCT
PAfromCT Author
User level: Level 1
4 points

Photos on Mac out of sync with iCloud

Hello Apple Community,


At the end of last year, our old Mac finally crashed and we were not able to extract the Photos library from it (both the Apple store and a 3rd party tried and failed). Of course the backup from the Time Machine was corrupted so we were not able to fully recover all of our pictures from 2004. The good news is that I had backed everything up to Amazon at least up until November of last year.


So we have been downloading the photos from Amazon and importing them to a Photos library on an external drive since the new Macs don't seem to have a lot of SSD space. Right now, iCloud is NOT turned on on my Mac but it IS turned on on my iPhone for Photos.


Somehow I screwed things up and on iCloud, we do not have all of our pictures from 2004. I have some from 2007, some from 2010 to Nov 2020 but it is not the complete library. On the Mac which does not have iCloud turned on, it has the complete library. My question is - if I turn on iCloud on my Mac (the Mac has the complete library), will it overwrite what is on iCloud now (a subset of the library) or will I end up having duplicates or will what's on iCloud now overwrite what I have on the Mac?


Thanks .... I know this is confusing ....



iMac, macOS 10.13

Posted on Jan 4, 2022 5:54 AM

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User profile for user: TonyCollinet
TonyCollinet
User level: Level 7
23,954 points

Posted on Jan 4, 2022 6:44 AM

First take a backup of the complete library on your mac - that is your only copy and the longer that is the case, the bigger your chance of losing it. You should also have a backup before you undertake any major date operation, such as syncing it with iCloud.


And you should just have a backup anyway.


Next enable iCloud photos on the mac. What is in the library on the mac will merge with what is in iCloud. You shouldn't have duplicates if the files stored in iCloud are 100% identical copies to those in the mac library. (Same size, name, metadata, content)

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User profile for user: TonyCollinet
TonyCollinet
User level: Level 7
23,954 points

Jan 4, 2022 6:44 AM in response to PAfromCT

First take a backup of the complete library on your mac - that is your only copy and the longer that is the case, the bigger your chance of losing it. You should also have a backup before you undertake any major date operation, such as syncing it with iCloud.


And you should just have a backup anyway.


Next enable iCloud photos on the mac. What is in the library on the mac will merge with what is in iCloud. You shouldn't have duplicates if the files stored in iCloud are 100% identical copies to those in the mac library. (Same size, name, metadata, content)

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Photos on Mac out of sync with iCloud

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