iPhone photos are not syncing

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Level 1

12 points

iPhone photos are not syncing

I cannot sync items from my iPhone to iCloud/other devices.

This seemed to happen shortly after I installed the ios18 update, which was earlier this week. Today I noticed that photos I took on my iPhone were not appearing on my iPad and MacBook like they normally do, and vice-a-versa. I took a look at my Photo libraries on all 3 devices and starting at about 3 am yesterday morning, photos did not start syncing.

My iPad and MacBook Pro are syncing to iCloud like normal, and they are syncing between themselves. It is my iPhone that is the problem. It neither is getting items from iCloud (that are on the other devices) nor is it uploading anything.

When I click my User Icon in the upper right hand corner of my photos app, it tells me it is syncing 3 items to iCloud, then it says 4, then 7, then sometimes it goes up to 50, but it never seems to finish syncing. Then when I open it again, it seems to be starting over at 3.

I also can’t do anything with the photos like send them. I thought I’d subvert the iCloud syncing and just message some photos that I needed to myself, or AirDrop, but it won’t let me do that either. It says it’s “Preparing” and I get a grey progress circle, but it never progresses. It just stays gray.

I also forced my iPhone to backup to iCloud now, but my photos still do not appear on my other devices.

I only have one iCloud account, and am using that for all my devices.

This is extremely frustrating. I am losing so much time trying to troubleshoot this. I honestly don’t know what to do. I need my photos on the other devices.

Here is some info on my devices:

Problem device:

iPhone

iOS Version: 18.0

Model: iPhone 13 Pro

Capacity: 256 gb

Available: 90.1 gb

Working devices:

iPad

iOS Version: 17.6.1

Model: iPad Pro 12.9 inch 3rd generation

Capacity: 512 gb

Available 352.43 gb

MacBook Air

macOS version: Sonoma 14.6.1

Model: 16 GB 15.3 inch, M3 chip

Capacity: 2 tb

Available: 1.72 tb

iCloud

Storage: 180.8 of 200 gb

I don’t know what other information I can provide.

iPhone 13 Pro, iOS 18

Posted on Sep 25, 2024 10:52 AM

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Answer 1

Sep 25, 2024 11:12 AM in response to Nottageek

Your iCloud storage seems awfully full, less than 10% free. Is this all pictures, or are you using iCloud Drive? Your MacAir is pretty full, too, at about 15% free.. Apple says you should keep at least 10% of your Mac's storage free. I try to keep 20% of my hard drive free, because I think I saw troubles occurring when I got less that that.

One thing to try would be to switch to 2TB of storage and see if things change. Unfortunately, that's an $8/month-- quite a jump it seems to me. For me, as far as Photos is concerned, I keep several Libraries on my Mac, and only one of them is (or can be) connected to iCloud. So pictures I want to keep but don't need to look at much, I have in separate Libraries freeing up iCloud.

You included lots of good information, but you didn't say if any of your devices have "Optimize Storage" turned on for either iCloud Photos or iCloud Drive. Are they?

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Answer 2

Nottageek Author

Level 1

12 points

Sep 25, 2024 11:24 AM in response to Richard.Taylor

>Your iCloud storage seems awfully full, less than 10% free. Is this all pictures, or are you using iCloud Drive?

I have a little over 100,000 "photos", a little over 212 videos. Most of the "photos" are actually generated images, not taken with the camera but created with apps/online image generation. But for all intents and purposes, they are jpeg/png still images.

>One thing to try would be to switch to 2TB of storage and see if things change. Unfortunately, that's an $8/month-- quite a jump it seems to me. For me, as far as Photos is concerned, I keep several Libraries on my Mac, and only one of them is (or can be) connected to iCloud. So pictures I want to keep but don't need to look at much, I have in separate Libraries freeing up iCloud.

I was anticipating that I might have to upgrade to the 2tb at some point. I like the convenience of having my images in the cloud, rather than having to do a bunch of redundant backing up if I were to store them locally on my devices. I think the higher subscription cost might be worth it in a 'set it and forget it' sort of way.

I have Optimize Storage on both my iPhone and iPad, but not my MacBook.

Thank you.

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Answer 3

Nottageek Author

Level 1

12 points

Sep 25, 2024 11:53 AM in response to Richard.Taylor

Here’s some more information I forgot to include. I have an old iPhone 6s Pro that I keep to just use occasionally for certain things. It has no cell service/SIM card…it’s like a small wi-fi only iPad, essentially. That old iPhone is uploading and downloading to the cloud just like my iPad and MacBook Pro, without a hitch. It’s still just my current iPhone 13 Pro that is the problem. I did drop it the other day from about 3-4 feet. It has a shock-absorbing case. Could it have been the drop?

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Answer 4

Nottageek Author

Level 1

12 points

Sep 25, 2024 11:38 AM in response to Richard.Taylor

But if my iCloud storage is problematic, why am I only having issues with my iPhone? That is the device that is not playing nice; my iPad and MacBook are syncing like normal (with each other/cloud).

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iPhone photos are not syncing

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