iPhone Sync always gets stuck in "Syncing Photos Waiting for items to copy."

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Level 1

5 points

iPhone Sync always gets stuck in "Syncing Photos Waiting for items to copy."

For years now, my iPhone sync with my Mac computer has never successfully finished. It always gets stuck in the "Syncing Photos (Step 5 of 5) - waiting for items to copy" phase with the syncing circle visible on the Finder sidebar. I sync my phone a couple times a month, and just make sure to give it plenty of time. Once it's been stuck in that state for long enough, I can either unplug it, or try hitting eject, and get my phone back. I'll find that my photos have imported and synced to my phone, along with my playlists on Music, as long as I gave it enough time. However, it doesn't give me options to Manage my Backups, and I get the impression that something isn't working properly.

This has happened for multiple iPhones, and mulitple MacBooks--been happening to me for years, at least.

When I look to Activity Monitor I see that com.apple.amp.devicesui (Finder) is Not Responding, so it looks like something is malfunctioning when I do this.

I do not use iCloud to sync my photos elsewhere. I sync my photos to the native Mac Photo app on my Macbook. I sync to music I store locally in the Music app on Macbook (I like to own my own files and use them).

As I said, this has been happening for many models of both Macbook and iPhone, and different OS.

I am currently on:

Macbook Pro 13 inch M1 from 2020

macOS Sequoia 15.2

iPhone: iPhone 16 Pro

iPhone OS: 18.0.1

iPhone 16 Pro, iOS 18

Posted on Jan 12, 2025 8:16 PM

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Answer 1

wrcooke

Level 1

24 points

Feb 19, 2025 7:59 AM in response to The_Stu

Hey, I feel your pain! I read not sure if it was on this series of replies but one stuck out. The volume the photo library is on needs to have "Ignore ownership on this volume" selected and applied to all. I had a similar issue after upgrading mob 2012 Mac mini to a M4 Mac mini and doing this stopped com.apple.amp.devicesui from showing not responding in activity viewer. I have my photo library on an external drive as I do have thousands of photo's, too big to store on the local boot device. Hope this helps you out.

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Answer 2

Jan 12, 2025 8:25 PM in response to The_Stu

To improve my understanding of the phenomenon, it would be highly beneficial if you could share a full screenshot (Do not crop it). Visual representations carry a greater impact than written descriptions.

Please remember that this is a public forum, so when attaching a screenshot, please avoid including any personal credentials such as IP addresses, card details, email IDs, Apple IDs, IMEI numbers, serial numbers, phone numbers, order IDs, or any identifiable location information if you are sharing a map.

With the limited information that you have provided, It is hard to even guess the problems faced by you.

You may get faster and better responses to your query by --> Writing an effective Apple Support Commun… - Apple ...

Please re-post with detail so that someone else can help.

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Answer 3

The_Stu Author

Level 1

5 points

Jan 13, 2025 9:19 AM in response to SravanKrA

Last night, when I synced, the syncing started to hang at "Syncing Photos (Step 5 of 5) - Waiting for Items to Copy". Today, when I synced, it's now hanging at "Syncing Artwork (Step 5 of 5) - Waiting for Items to Copy." In my experience my phone has never gone beyond Step 5 of 5 and finished syncing. I've left it plugged in as long as eight hours before and it's never finished. I always have to unplug it at this stage. As far as I can tell it's finished syncing and when I unplug it from my machine the photos, albums, and music playlists are finished updating. I cannot, however Back my phone up at this stage. As you can see below, the relevant section is greyed out for that.

My Activity Monitor shows that it's trying to work on something, at least.

It was even worse last night when I tried to sync, and left it for three hours.

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iPhone Sync always gets stuck in "Syncing Photos Waiting for items to copy."

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