Newly selected System Photo Library not uploading old images and video to iCloud

I have a MacBook Air running MacOS Sonoma. I upgraded from 200 GB iCloud to 2TB iCloud, turned an old 1.05 TB library on an external hard drive into my System Photo Library, and then imported everything from my previous System Photo Library located on my internal drive (~170 GB) into my new System Photo Library on my external hard drive, then turned on iCloud Photos Download and Store Originals.

Now, if I take new photos and screenshots on my iPhone, they appear in the MacBook Air’s new System Photo Library, but none of the ~75k old photos and ~7k videos that were present in the 1.05 TB library (but not the ~170 GB library) are being uploaded from the library to iCloud Photos.

What have I done wrong? Is there a way to force all 80k photos and videos to upload to iCloud Photos?

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 14.7

Posted on Oct 28, 2024 3:39 AM

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1 reply

léonie

Level 10

203,799 points

Oct 28, 2024 4:03 AM in response to sullydds

You may want to check the status of your system photos library, as described here:

Check the status of your library in Photos for macOS - Apple Support

Create the two smart albums mentioned in the link. Are they empty, as they should be?

Is your external drive compatible with Photos? If the file system format is not macOS Extended (Journaled) or APFS, Photos may not be able to sync the library with iCloud.

Also, some older videos or image files might be blocking the upload, if the format is no longer supported by iCloud. Older legacy items may need converting to a different format.

And you will need a lot of patience. The upload to iCloud may take more than a week for such a large library.

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Newly selected System Photo Library not uploading old images and video to iCloud