iCloud photos

Ah. That helps.

You have 8,600 pictures. That's it. The cloud, your Mac, and your phone are synced.

If you have additional picture in your pictures folder, that's fine. The pictures folder does not sync, your photo library on your Mac syncs. If you have more photos in the folder, drag those into Photos on the Mac to sync.

As a reference. I have 13,000+ pictures and 1,000 videos. If I get info on my Photos folder, it contains 3 items. All of my pictures are in the Photos library.

See instructions in See instructions in Set up and use iCloud Photos - Apple Support

See the article Check the status of your library in Photos for macOS - Apple Support

Check your iCloud status.

Open Photos on the Mac

Select Library

Scroll to the bottom

You'll see the current cloud status and count

Same on the iPhone

It's likely your images are still uploading.

It's not the numbers. Does the status say paused? Synced, etc. That will let you know if the upload is still active.

Listed right beneath the count of photos.

It was say something like uploading paused, last synced xx minutes ago, etc.

John Haley1 Said:

"iCloud photos: How do I turn on iCloud photos?"

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Wait it Out:

If there are thousands to transfer, then it will take some time, sure enough.