Photos asks me to upgrade storage plan but I'm below the limit

It will be much faster to start over with a new, empty library and has several advantages.

On the plus side:

• The items from iCloud will just download again to your Mac and you avoid the lengthy, new upload, which will take longer. You could use the option "optimize Mac Storage" for the first download. Then you can get Photos working again without downloading all the originals at once. Switch back to "Download originals" later, when you want to make a backup copy of your library.
• You do not need to sign up for more iCloud storage for twice the size of your library.
• You will have a new, clean library, rebuild from scratch. All items, that are not compatible with iCloud and never made the upload to iCloud will be removed. You can be sure, that all items in the new library will be compatible with iCloud Photos and cannot cause the background processes to hang. As a matter of fact, when I suspect my Photos Library has become damaged or contains damaged media, I rebuild it by downloading it again from iCloud instead of repairing it and then uploading it again.

But there are also disadvantages:

• You will lose the projects: iCloud Photos does not store the projects, so they will not come back from iCloud and you will have to recreate your books and slideshows. That is why I am always creating my projects in a separate Photos Library, a small library for each project with just the photos and videos from the projects.
• The named faces: When we download the library again from iCloud the Mac will scan again for faces and we may need to confirm again some of the faces. The manually added faces are not very stable when syncing with iCloud. I am using the precaution to open each People album in turn, select all photos with named faces in this album and assign the name of the person as a keyword. This way I can quickly check for lost faces after a system upgrade or after downloading the photos from iCloud. The added bonus is, that the keywords with names will be exported with the photos, when I export them as a backup outside Photos.

BTW: To avoid such problems with lack of Cloud storage I am using a storage plan with twice the size of my used cloud storage. Nearly half of my cloud storage is empty. This way I can be sure not to get into a fix because of a lack of cloud storage.

I am using the additional cloud storage just temporary when I am working with large media files, videos or audio files. So I can keep huge folders of new media on iCloud Drive. Or, when I am importing new images I am saving the originals in folders on iCloud Drive until I can archive them in my archive photos libraries.

Taking the conservative approach, the code cannot assume that "there's no need to upload anything" as it does not know what has happened to the local library since it was last connected to the cloud.

You can, as you say, create a new empty library and download 176GB. Another alternative is to upgrade your storage plan just for the duration of the sync (which should be just this month unless your internet connection is painfully slow).

Daniel Stonek wrote:

markwmsn wrote:

Taking the conservative approach, the code cannot assume that "there's no need to upload anything" as it does not know what has happened to the local library since it was last connected to the cloud.

Codes don't assume anything. They should contain tools to evaluate if there's anything to upload like rsync does.

They compare existing files, their sizes and dates. After that, in my case, there wasn't anything to upload.

All programs are built according to specifications, describing the requirements, that will ensure that the program can run correctly, without crashes or mistakes. One important requirement for iCloud Photos is sufficient storage to upload the library. Photos is testing, if it will have enough cloud storage in the worst case scenario, that all items in the library to be uploaded are different from the photos already in iCloud. That is safer than to start the upload and running out of cloud storage and causing iCloud to hang. Photos might comparing the two libraries for a better estimate of the required size, but that might take very long time, as it would not suffice to compare the file attributes, because the files might have been renamed.

You described the way you think the code should be designed. I described the way it seems the code was designed: check for space first, for maximum safety.

Maybe the design of a Photos library as a complex system of files including a number of interlocked databases made the check you described less attractive or just not first priority. Nobody outside Apple knows.

Daniel Stonek wrote: Codes don't assume anything.

Just saw this. I gotta say, "Wow!"