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Want to upload photos from Photos to iCloud

Hi! I cannot for the life of me figure out how to sync the Photos on my Mac with my photos on iCloud. I am signed in with my apple id on both of them (I can verify this from within iCloud). I am connected to the internet. I have adequate storage (It says I have 199gb spare). I have clicked the 'iCloud Photo Library' button. If I go to iCloud under system preferences, Photos is checked.


My photos under iCloud and Photos are still completely disjoint and show no signs of syncing. How do I actually put photos onto iCloud?




[Image Edited by Moderator to Remove Personal Information]

MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 10.13

Posted on Feb 15, 2022 4:47 PM

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Question marked as Best reply

Posted on Feb 16, 2022 2:12 PM

Open Photos

Select Library

Scroll to the bottom

You'll see a count of items in your library and the current iCloud status beneath that (updated just now, uploading xx of xxx, paused, etc.)


Depending on the size of your library and initial sync can take a log time (maybe even days). Uploads are throttled.



Some thoughts, feel free to ignore any:

If you have no other pictures in iCloud outside of those in your photo library, you may wish to turn off iCloud sync on your Mac and then delete the images in iCloud at iCloud.com to start again. Know that every time you turn on/off iCloud sync in Photos on your Mac, the entire upload process begins again. If you have a mix of photos from multiple devices that are also on your Mac, your computer is trying to process matches too ... which can add to the time.


You may initially wish to "download originals to this Mac." I'm convinced that this will make the sync faster as there is no image processing happening at the same time (I could be wrong).


Make sure your Mac is powered. Uploads happen as a background process. You may also want to restart your Mac to trigger the upload process again.

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3 replies
Question marked as Best reply

Feb 16, 2022 2:12 PM in response to blarblarblarblar

Open Photos

Select Library

Scroll to the bottom

You'll see a count of items in your library and the current iCloud status beneath that (updated just now, uploading xx of xxx, paused, etc.)


Depending on the size of your library and initial sync can take a log time (maybe even days). Uploads are throttled.



Some thoughts, feel free to ignore any:

If you have no other pictures in iCloud outside of those in your photo library, you may wish to turn off iCloud sync on your Mac and then delete the images in iCloud at iCloud.com to start again. Know that every time you turn on/off iCloud sync in Photos on your Mac, the entire upload process begins again. If you have a mix of photos from multiple devices that are also on your Mac, your computer is trying to process matches too ... which can add to the time.


You may initially wish to "download originals to this Mac." I'm convinced that this will make the sync faster as there is no image processing happening at the same time (I could be wrong).


Make sure your Mac is powered. Uploads happen as a background process. You may also want to restart your Mac to trigger the upload process again.

Want to upload photos from Photos to iCloud

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