Q: Photostream on iMac not working after Yosemite

I have a similar problem and have seen that quite a few people have the same problem but can find no solution.

Issue: photostream often does not download new photos to the Photos app on my MBP2015, unless I reboot.

Issue: photostream often does not download new photos to the Photos app on my MBP2010, and this is note fixed even if I reboot or "toggle" myphototream off/on from the photos preferences.

Its a very annoying as photostream/IPhoto worked fine (albeit SLOWLY) on my MBP2010 before yosemite/the new computer. 

I am not interested in "fixing" this by using icloud photos as I have 300GB of photos.

Help with fixing the specific issues above would be greatly appreciated.

You just have to be patient. I had several photos in my Photo Stream that showed up in iPhoto fairly quickly. They took a while longer to show up in Photos. Can't tell you exactly when, because I didn't check again until the next day, but they did show up....

Cheers,

GB

Thanks for taking the time to respond, however as a general rule I don't believe in the just give it more time philosophy as it usually results in no action.

For me its like when I ring a call centre to find out about a refund and am told it will be "a few days" and then nothing happens until I call again and am told sorry there was a "system error" :-)

Photos has been open for 4 hours without downloading a single photo or even showing the little boxes indicating that it is downloading anything.

Does anyone know how to force Photos to update/download the photostream?

When my Photo stream is not downloading immediately from my iPhone it is usually caused by the iPhone and not the Mac.

Typically I forgot to swipe the  Camera.app up to close it.  The iPhone will only start to upload to My Photo Stream, when the Camera.app is no longer open.  This is actually quite nice, because it gives us time to delete bad photos before they start uploading and waisting bandwidth. And if the iPhone battery is low, it will not upload either.

What's more, I Have some different pics on my mac in photo stream and different ones in the photo stream on my iPhone. Also photos I delete from my camera roll get deleted from the photo stream too. Seems like an Apple strategy to get everyone on iCloud photo sharing.

What's more, I Have some different pics on my mac in photo stream and different ones in the photo stream on my iPhone.

That is normal.  What you will be seeing in My Phto Stream will depend on when you enabled My Photo Stream on each device.

Also photos I delete from my camera roll get deleted from the photo stream too.

That has been introduced with iOS 8.  You can no longer delete from My Photo Stream with deleting from the Camera Roll, or from the Camera Roll without deleting from My Photo Stream. Camera Roll and Photo Stream are using the same storage.

Thank you for posting!  The key to the answer is to make sure the camera app has been closed on the iPhone.  This also solves several other instances when I just couldn't figure out why sometimes I would get pictures in my photostream right away, while other times I had to 'just wait'.  It's all about the Camera app being open.

I have had this problem since upgrading to Photos, from iPhoto.   I run my iMac on an Ethernet connection, and generally have wifi turned off.  For the sake of experimentation, I had the Photos app open, none of my new pictures from my iPhone 5 were loading.  I turned on Wifi on my iMac, and less than a minute later, they started showing up in Photos. (Camera app was still open on my iPhone from me having just taken some new test pictures)

Hope this information helps someone else who has been frustrated.

I turned on Wifi on my iMac, and less than a minute later, they started showing up in Photos. (Camera app was still open on my iPhone from me having just taken some new test pictures)

• My Photo Stream uploads from your iPhone to iCloud
  • when it is connected to Wi-Fi,
  • when the Camera.app is closed (the Photos.app does not matter),
  • when the battery is proper charged - at least 20%, or the photo stream will not upload at all.
  • Once the photos are in iCloud it does not matter, if you open or close the camera on th iPhone, the Mac will download from iCloud and not from the iPhone.
• The Mac needs to be connected to Wi-Fi to download from iCloud.

The Mac needs to be connected to Wi-Fi to download from iCloud.

This is the part that doesn't make a lot of sense to me.  I'm using an iMac. It's a desktop computer, connected to the internet 100% of the time via ethernet, it can always touch iCloud.  Why should I have to turn on wifi to get Photostream to work.  That seems like a bug to me...

This is the part that doesn't make a lot of sense to me.  I'm using an iMac. It's a desktop computer, connected to the internet 100% of the time via ethernet, it can always touch iCloud.  Why should I have to turn on wifi to get Photostream to work.  That seems like a bug to me...

Ethernet does also work for iCloud Photo Library and My Photo Stream, other than Air Drop, that only will work for Wi-Fi.  Sorry, I wrote Wi-Fi when I meant Internet connection.

For the Mac an active Internet connection will suffice.  https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203511

1. Make sure your Mac has an active Internet connection. Without Internet, updates to My Photo Stream won't appear in Photos, iPhoto, or Aperture.

I have the same problem.

New photos from iPhones are shown up on each iPhone in My Photo Stream.

New photos imported into Photos on iMac are shown up on each iPhone in My Photo Stream.

New photos from iPhones are NOT shown up on Photos on iMac in the My Photo Stream.

Turn on/off Photo Stream, rebooting it in between, any sensible tricks were tried.  Still no success.

Any help?  Apple, Say something!

So I had this same problem. Photostream is on my iPad & iPhone now problem, but Photos just wasn't there. I had everything turned on correctly. Some photos would show up to All Photos that clearly were syncing then it just sort of stopped and the only stuff that showed up was shared photos.

Well, you won't believe this, but the ACTUAL HACKY SOLUTION comes from the official Apple Support page.

Get help using My Photo Stream - Apple Support

1. Make sure that My Photo Stream is on. If it’s already on, turn it off and tap Delete. Then, turn on My Photo Stream again.

That was it. This lame turn off-hit-delete-turn-on hack worked. Photostream once again shows up as album in Photos. Hope this same thing helps others. Anyway, Google Photos looking better and better ....