Apple Photos not syncing after repair and restore library multiple times

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Level 1

18 points

Apple Photos not syncing after repair and restore library multiple times

Hi,

I've been experiencing an issue where my Photos library on my Mac has not been syncing with iCloud for more than two weeks. I have tried the following to resolve the issue:

Repairing and restoring the Photos library (multiple times).
Restarting the Mac.
Signing out and back into iCloud.
Turning iCloud syncing on and off.
Leaving the Mac plugged into power for a week with the Photos app running (after restoring, etc.).

Unfortunately, none of these steps have resolved the issue. Additionally, I've noticed that when I click on "finding duplicates," the app says it will find duplicates when not in use and connected to power. However, this does not seem to progress even though the app is not in use and the Mac is plugged into power.

My iPad Pro and iPhone 16 Pro are fully in sync, as is the Photos app on the browser. The issue is only my Mac. By the way, I have 4TB available on iCloud, so storage is not an issue.

Does anyone have a solution or insight into what might be causing this? I would greatly appreciate any help or suggestions.

Thanks!

I am running MacOS 15.1.1 on Macbook Pro M1

MacBook Pro 16″

Posted on Dec 3, 2024 11:34 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

léonie

Level 10

203,419 points

Dec 3, 2024 11:48 AM in response to BenIbarra

You write, that the Mac is connected to a power supply, but is the Mac fully charged, or does it not charge properly?

If the Mac is fully charged, and there is plenty of free storage on the internal drive, you could try the following instead of trying to repair your current system Photos Library - I had to do the same thing after upgrading to macOS 15.1.1, because the Mac would no longer sync with iCloud Photos.

Create a new, empty Photos Library
Make this library the System Photos Library in the Settings > Photos > General: Use as System Photos Library
Turn on iCloud Photos for this Library.
Save the previous library to a backup drive and remove it from your Mac to save storage.
Then wait for the iCloud Syncing to resume.

There is one problem I encountered. All my Photos, videos and albums and folders came back from iCloud, but the projects will be missing, as the projects are not syncing with iCloud. And on Sequoia also the Shared Albums did not come back, I am still seeing my shared albums on my other devices, but no longer on this Mac. If you need your Shared albums, do not switch to a different system Photos Library, because the Shared albums are no longer stored in the user library but have been moved to the System Photos Library.

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Answer 2

léonie

Level 10

203,419 points

Dec 4, 2024 1:24 AM in response to BenIbarra

Hi, Bentlbarra. When this happened on my Mac after the update to 15.1.1, I tried several ways to restore the library, without success. My library is much smaller than yours, just 77000 photos and videos, roughly 300GB.

Restoring from Time Machine never completed. Time Machine gave up with an error message, that restoring failed.
I had a copy of the library on a different external drive, but Photos could not open this copy either, after I copied it to my Pictures folder.

It seems, that the library had been damaged beyond repair. Letting iCloud Photos recreate the library by downloading a new copy from iCloud has been the only way to get access again to my Photos.

There may be a bug, I am not sure yet. Currently Photos cannot open any of my libraries that I have saved on my external drive while running an older version of Photos. I stopped trying to open these older libraries on the Mac with Sequoia, so I can still open them at least on my older Macs with Sonoma and Ventura.

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Answer 3

BenIbarra Author

Level 1

18 points

Dec 3, 2024 10:04 PM in response to léonie

Hi,

Thanks for your note.

Yes, the computer is fully charged, and Photos is completely stuck.

Do you mean this is a macOS 15.1.1 bug?

I was already considering rebuilding the library, but I have been reluctant because I have it on an external SSD drive, and I would need another one. My library is 2TB. And now I think that losing the Shared Albums would be too much of a compromise.

I wonder if making my backup library file the system library would fix the problem. I backed it up before I updated the OS to 15.1.1. Do you have any thoughts?

Thanks again

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Answer 4

BenIbarra Author

Level 1

18 points

Dec 4, 2024 7:07 PM in response to léonie

This is weird!!

I'm surprised and confused by what I just noticed. A shared album that a friend shared with me a couple of days ago has successfully synced with the Photos app on my Mac. However, my main library remains stuck (not syncing for 3 weeks now), and both the duplicates and people detection features are also stalled. It's puzzling that the shared album synced without issue while the rest of the library continues to have problems.

Has anyone experienced something similar or have any idea what might be going on?

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Answer 5

BenIbarra Author

Level 1

18 points

Dec 16, 2024 1:32 PM in response to léonie

Thanks so much again for your help. I did what you suggested, even knowing the shared albums would be lost. Now everything works fine. And also the shared albums are syncing!

Again, thanks for your invaluable help.

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Apple Photos not syncing after repair and restore library multiple times

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