Some photos fail to upload to iCloud library but open fine in Preview

henry_s wrote:

Can anyone help diagnose why some photos won't upload to the Photos library (iCloud) when they all open fine in Preview

Henry, I am not quite sure, what you mean by "won't upload to the Photos library (iCloud) ".

• Are you trying to import the photos into the Photos Library on your Mac and are getting an error on Import,
• or are you trying to upload the photos using a web browser to the photos.app at www.icloud.com?

Some will import fine but others throw an error. When comparing the file info on good and bad files there doesn't appear to be any differences.

Are you getting the error when importing to Photos, or is Photos showing the photos in an "unable to upload" album?

Would appreciate any guidance on looking for the cause of this and then a fix! It's madness to have 20k+ photos I cannot import to the iCloud Photos stream.

There is no longer My Photo Stream, just iCloud Photos or Shared Albums.

If you are seeing the error message when you are trying to import the photos into the Photos.app on your Mac, but you can open them in Preview,

• Try to import not so many photos at once, just small groups at a time
• Check the filenames of the photos, if there are special characters in the name.
• Try to import from a folder in your user home folder, for example your Pictures folder.
• Use a folder on a volume, that is not encrypted and not a synced folder.

If you are getting a message "Unable to upload" in the status bar in Photos,

• Convert the image fillet a different format using Preview. Check the color sync profile.
• Make sure, that Photos copies the file into the Photos Library on Import. iCloud Photos does not support referenced files. Photos imported as Referenced files need to be consolidated in the Photos Library.

henry_s wrote:

... I have even tried uploading just one image, one of the failed ones and that still fails. ...

...

What is the file format of this file? Earlier you wrote "( file types are jpg, jpeg, png, mov etc) "

• If a JPEG cannot be imported, the file may be using an unsupported color sync format. You can change the color sync profile in Preview from the Tools menu.
• If the image or video is in a container format (heic, Mov) Photos may not be able to import it, if the file is on an external drive with an incompatible file system format, for example case-sensitive, or the or the folder is protected in some way, for example a shared folder or on a Time Machine volume.

If Preview will open them, then you could use Preview to export a format that Photos would open, HEIC or perhaps a more compatible jpg.

Can you view them in QuickLook in Finder? Just hit the spacebar? If QuickLook works, then you could select a picture, right-click for the menu, choose Quick Actions, and Convert Image. This will also work for bunches at a time, but I'm not sure the limit.

Be sure you have backups before possibly corrupting the pictures!