Why is iCloud syncing paused on my iPhone 13 mini?

Hello AndrewIH,

The first thing we would suggest would be to power cycle the iPhone by following these steps found at Restart your iPhone - Apple Support:  

1. Press and hold either volume button and the side button until the power-off slider appears.

2. Drag the slider, then wait 30 seconds for your device to turn off. If your device is frozen or unresponsive, Force restart iPhone - Apple Support

3. To turn your device back on, press and hold the side button (on the right side of your iPhone) until you see the Apple logo.

While simple, this can refresh the iOS, apps and connections. 

If the problem continues, and the issue is confined to Messages, follow these steps:

1. Tap on Settings > [your name] > iCloud > Show All
2. Look for Messages
3. If On, tap Messages
4. Toggle "Sync this iPhone" off
5. Wait 10 seconds
6. Toggle "Sync this iPhone" back on

The purpose of these steps is also to reset the connection with the servers.

Have a good day.

The same thing has been happening to me in 16.2 on my iPad, but while the Files app tells the syncing is paused (at the bottom of the window and and has an exclamation mark with circular arrows around it next to iCloud Drive in the side bar), it is actually syncing in the background. To get rid of the incorrect app badging, I followed the instructions srbwanderer has above but for Settings > [your name] > iCloud > iCloud Drive > toggle off, wait a bit, and turn it back on. After the Files app reestablished syncing with the iCloud Drive servers, the app badging is fixed. Hope this helps.

Same exact thing is happening to me since 16.1. iPhone 12 Pro is pausing photo syncing to iCloud to save battery but my battery is at 100%. I then have to tap the resume syncing command. Is it a sync issue or power management issue?

The problem is with photos 'syncing paused for 12 items no internet connection'.

Reboot no help.

here's the solution to the "syncing paused" message-

If you're seeing a "Syncing Paused" message on Messages on an iPhone, you can try these steps:

you're welcome :)

1. Go to Settings
2. Tap your name
3. Select iCloud
4. Select Show All
5. Find Messages
6. If it's on, tap Messages
7. Toggle Sync this iPhone off
8. Wait 10 seconds
9. Toggle Sync this iPhone back on

try this-

If you're seeing a "Syncing Paused" message on Messages on an iPhone, you can try these steps:

1. Go to Settings
2. Tap your name
3. Select iCloud
4. Select Show All
5. Find Messages
6. If it's on, tap Messages
7. Toggle Sync this iPhone off
8. Wait 10 seconds
9. Toggle Sync this iPhone back on

Check your iCloud storage if it is full, it can cause issues. Remove some data to create space, or you can purchase more iCloud storage. Additionally, check Apple's system status here: Apple - Support - System Status. If it is green for iCloud, then there’s no issue from Apple's end. Best regards.  

[Edited by Moderator]

Re suggested solution of turning off syncing to iCloud Drive, I got this message:

”Some Changes Haven't

Synced to iCloud

If you turn off syncing this iPhone before your files have synced, you will lose your changes.

Turn off and Delete from iPhone”

I cancelled.

Back up your iPhone to a Mac or at least to full iCloud. (Go to settings)

update your iPhone to 16.x

the bad syncing issue doesn’t disappear but is less frequent since updating

create a free proton account and use free proton VPN and let apple know on their feedback pages that you want better support and better tech beyond pregnant man emojis.

Oh ok. I ended up just turning off sync messages to iCloud. Every time I messaged someone it was trying to save it to my iCloud. I haven’t had the message pop up anymore. I am sure Apple will fix this problem (hopefully soon). Pretty annoying.

Same here with ipad air. Plenty of memory free in icloud (and devices) but items stuck in "syncing," then "syncing paused," and now I see nothing about syncing but the items are not in photos. They've seemingly just vanished into ... who knows where. This started more than 12 hours ago, devices restarted, still nothing.

Ransomware, i lost a ton of data on Windows it synced for almost a month, wrote constantly to the SSD synced not much. At some point I was so frustrated that I'd rather had my data lost than waste my life away, even copying to another folder was slow because you couldn't just end the service. so thank you Apple.

Doesn't do anything if the issues are serverside, iCloud has some serious capacity problems. At one point I had to call Support because some batch script hung and 20Gb of deleted files counted towards my quota, and I stopped receiving emails. Support had to delete those manually. Even now when I am syncing, it syncs a file or two, pauses, syncs again, pauses...

“Even now when I am syncing, it syncs a file or two, pauses, syncs again, pauses..”

I have this every day in iOS 16.latest.

pretty sure it’s either from not using the correct emojis, or from repeatedly leaving fed up comments in Feedback.

PS - i keep trying to mark your replies “helpful” but it’s grayed out.

For me, syncing paused happens on my iPhone and iPad, but not on my Mac. I can make any number of changes in the Finder to files in iCloud and the changes are uploaded immediately. So I think it must be an issue on iOS and not server-side.