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Photos not uploading from Mac Library to iCloud

After finally taking the plunge into subscribing for full iCloud+ storage, I've been trying for weeks w/o success to get my Photos library to upload from my Mac to iCloud. I have over 30K photos, and the app has been saying (at the bottom of the screen) "Uploading xxxxx Items" without that number changing.


I'd appreciate any advice or troubleshooting ideas, but please note that, yes, I've gone through all the correct steps that are supposed to allow my Photos library to sync to iCloud, and I've triple-checked that all those settings are correct. I have a strong high speed data connection (+/-300GB upload speed).


Thanks in advance!

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 10.15

Posted on May 20, 2022 2:22 PM

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Posted on May 20, 2022 3:45 PM

You may just need to wait. My 5000 item 50GB library took 48 hours full time. Yours is up to 6 times that size. Note that each time you disable/re-enable iCloud the process starts from the beginning - so don’t do that. The sync doesn’t use your full internet speed, and it is normal for the progress indicator to not update for long periods.


Leave the mac on, connected to power, 24/7 with the photos app open.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

May 20, 2022 3:45 PM in response to Darth Joha

You may just need to wait. My 5000 item 50GB library took 48 hours full time. Yours is up to 6 times that size. Note that each time you disable/re-enable iCloud the process starts from the beginning - so don’t do that. The sync doesn’t use your full internet speed, and it is normal for the progress indicator to not update for long periods.


Leave the mac on, connected to power, 24/7 with the photos app open.

May 20, 2022 10:33 PM in response to Darth Joha

It is not just an upload - iCloud has to create a Photos Library in iCloud, and any photo you upload has to be checked, if it is a duplicate of another photo already in iCloud. Photos has to look for duplicate albums or inconsistent metadata and to resolve conflicts. It has to be indexed on Apple's cloud servers. The first upload of my Photos Library to iCloud (40000 photos and videos) took more than ten days, even without interrupting the upload. The larger the library, the longer it will take, and not just proportional to the number of photos, as each photo has to be compared to all others.

And Apple seems currently to be busy with maintenance work at the cloud servers, perhaps in preparation for new system versions to come. You may want to check occasionally the status of the cloud services on this page: Apple - Support - System Status . Day before yesterday I have seen some problems with iCloud reported, today Apple is working on Apple Music Radio.


Photos not uploading from Mac Library to iCloud

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