"Syncing Paused" in iMessages

All, understand the frustration. As before, mine was not simply fixed by installing 17.3. My recommendation is to install 17.3, then do the following on a device by device basis, but wait until it finishes on one before starting another. Example:

1.) install 17.3 on iPhone

2.) reboot iPhone after install

3.) Settings > iCloud > Show All Apps > Messages in Cloud > Sync Now

4.) Let it finish. It’s going to take awhile.

Then do the same with other devices having the issue. One by one. Let the sync finish before starting the next one.

YES! It does appear that 17.3 has addressed the issue. Recommend that you restart the device after the update, then go in and click "Sync now" in the iCloud Messages section. The updates for all devices corrected the issue on my iPhone, iPad, MacBook and Watch. Appears to be syncing again.

I wanted to offer the solution that fixed it for me:

1.) Make sure all devices are updated to latest OS available.

2.) Turn off Messages in Cloud on all devices.

3.) Turn off iMessage on all devices.

4.) Reboot all devices.

5.) Start with iPhone.

6.) Turn on iMessage.

7.) Turn on iMessages in the cloud.

8.) Leave it plugged in and walk away. Could take days depending on the number of messages stored.

9.) Once completed, repeat steps 6 through 8 with other devices, but only have one device syncing at a time.

It will read paused, but it’s still working in the background. Leave it plugged in as much as you can.

I reduced my storage to 30 days until all devices were synced, and then reset it back to one year.

I think I may have found a fix for this. It worked for me anyway!

I was actually having the same problem on my Mac but the fix is the same:

On the Mac, open System Settings or on the iPhone open Settings.

Go into your iCloud account by typing your picture at the top of the list.

On the Mac, choose 'Show More Apps' under 'Apps using iCloud'. On iPhone choose 'Show All' under 'Apps using iCloud'.

Select 'Messages in iCloud' on either.

Make sure 'Use on this Mac' or 'Use on this iPhone' is switched on.

Under status on either, click the 'Sync now' button and wait. The Syncing Paused message should change to 'Syncing' and after about five minutes everything should be in sync.

I must admit that one text message thread has not synced – I'm not sure why...

Just updated, still having the issue. I went into settings:

1 - Apple ID

2 - iCloud

3 - Show All

4 - Messages in iCloud

5 - Sync Now

And it synced!

i followed all of the steps on both my MacBook Pro and iPhone, and after 48 hours they completed syncing.

During the 48 hours, they all appeared to be broken (sync, syncing pauses, forced sync, repeat) but were all syncing in the background.

IMO - it is working in the background, but the notification to the user makes it appear as though it is glitching, as there is no progress tracker; the only indication that it was progressing was the message count would change slightly by a few hundred on the “In Cloud” and “Syncing” counts within the force sync window.

Just an update for anyone having the same issue as it's still present with my iphone 14 Pro Max. The syncing continues once you are no longer directly in message or the icloud settings. If you're doing other things with the device the syncing will continue, but once you open messages or icloud settings the syncing stops. Just let it do it's thing in the background and it will finish eventually.

As someone did mention, it took a whole day and overnight to get them all, but after the 17.3 iOS update it worked. It did randomly change from “syncing” to “not syncing paused” by itself, but didn’t appear to ever actually stop. After waking up the next working, it was completed. Patience was, indeed, key

I'm not sure if this will solve the problem for anyone else but thought I would share. A friend was having this issue and when I looked at her phone she was completely out of iCloud storage. She upgraded her storage and this issue went away.

Oh, I hear the same frustration in you all as I had myself. What I would encourage you to do is turn iMessage in the Cloud off on all your devices, reboot them all, and then log back in to messages in the cloud on one device, and then forget about it. I think if you have your sync set up for one year, it’s going to take a long time. It took mine one or two days and I only keep messages for 30 days, it will sync up, it will just take some time. Once one device finishes work on the others.

The reason I recommend you do it one device at a time, and let it complete the sync, is that if there are too many devices syncing with the cloud, uploading/downloading messages, it’s going to cause a delay in the processing.

Nothing scientific, just my opinion, and the procedure I used to get everything back in line on 17.3.

I was having this same issue which also made it to where I could not send pictures if wasn’t to another iPhone. Called Apple support & had to do a factory reset on my phone to get it to work.

After iOS/ ipad 17.3 update works fine without aby problems.

I was having the same problem for about two weeks because I reset my phone and changed my phone carrier. I tried everything that everybody suggested & had no luck. Today there was a new update and I updated my phone and my messages completely synced. I don’t know if it will work for everyone else, but I would suggest to try that and see what happens.

i cannot remember, but it took quite a while to upload a significant amount of text messages to the cloud. Like below, you have to be patient. It’s not immediate. And only do one device at a time and let it finish. Best to start the sync at night, put it on a charger and go to bed. Will be done by the morning.