Syncing photos deletion message

I am currently syncing photos from different Apple devices (2 iphones (2020&2024), 1 MBP2018) to iCloud. I want to add my iPad2022 to the synching because doing AirDrop from iPhones to iPad is becoming a pain (i had set it up this way because i have been travelling for 10 years and WiFi is not always present and when it is, internet speed is rarely fast enough for iCloud synching). As well, i did not have enough memory to handle my 80k photos/videos on 1 device a few years back, but my iPhones and iPad can on their own now. But i am getting this message which makes me somewhat nervous about enabling it (losing 47k pics 🤔). Everything (but the iMac) is backed up on iCloud, so it wouldn’t exactly be a loss, i guess, but with Apple, and the lack of consistency and synching with albums, one never knows what happens exactly. That ~47k pics is close to the 46k pics of the MBP

So any advice or thoughts before i decide to move forward with this?

Posted on Oct 22, 2024 9:08 AM

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3 replies

FoxFifth

Level 10

477,535 points

Oct 22, 2024 9:40 AM in response to pyguy

The photos that message refers to are photos on the iPad that were synced to the iPad from a Mac by using Finder (or previously iTunes). They will only be removed from the iPad.

Unless they were deleted from the Mac, they should still be on the Mac and should sync back to the iPad when you turn on iCloud Photos on the iPad.

See the following for information on syncing via Finder (iTunes syncing was similar an still supported on older macOS versions that supported iTunes). Sync your photos manually using the Finder - Apple Support

pyguy Author

Level 1

11 points

Oct 22, 2024 9:48 AM in response to FoxFifth

Thank you! I suspected somewhat as much but was still wondering about the difference of ~1000 pics given that i haven’t used the MBP in over 2 yrs since i imported them.

i will move ahead with it anyhow. Thanks again for the clarification.

pyguy Author

Level 1

11 points

Oct 23, 2024 8:18 AM in response to pyguy

As an informative add-on for whomever else might ask themselves this question, once i started the process, Apple’s process would stop deletion every few 1000s without warning, and i had to restart manually. The syncing is still going on and also stopping on its own without warning, nearly 24 hours later, and i am on 45Mbps download speed.

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Syncing photos deletion message