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iCloud.com Photos stuck "Preparing your library…" for more than two weeks!

Hi,


iCloud Photos work well on my iPad, iPhone and OS X, but the web-based version of Photos has been stuck "Preparing your library…" for more than two weeks. I have more than 75GB of pictures in my account, including some raw files. How can I get it to work?


Thank you,

Max

iCloud.com-OTHER

Posted on Mar 21, 2015 9:04 AM

Reply
51 replies

Apr 15, 2016 12:15 AM in response to MaxPlante

I have the same problem – stuck on "preparing library" for 20 minutes at same 48% on progress bar. I have a large number of photos, and a lot of them are TIFFs. Ironically, I started Photos so I could see if I could turn off its automatic start whenever I plug in my camera (I use different software, and now am really glad I do). But Photos software failed in 3 ways:

* no access to Preferences (grayed out) until the library is prepared

* Preparing library was either stuck or frozen, with no indication of what was going on

* No way to back out once Preparing Library is stuck; window close box grayed out, and so is Photos "Quit" command.

I lack the patience of many commenters here, and since my purpose was not to use Photos (and with this experience it definitely isn't) I used Force Quit to exit Photos. This was an unfortunate and disappointing encounter with this software.

[using OS 10.11.4 on a late 2009 Mac Mini with 8 GB RAM]

Jul 17, 2016 5:07 PM in response to MaxPlante

I experienced the same issue with my iCloud photos not downloading to my Windows 10 computer. What resolved it was going into the iCloud application and clicking on the Photos "options". Even though the option to download my iCloud photo library was selected as should be to download my photos, I deselected it, clicked on "Done" and then hit "Apply" in the iCloud folder window. Then, I went back into the Photos "options" and reselected all the Photo options I wanted, hit "Done", then "Apply" in the iCloud folder window. I then went into the iCloud Photos application, then hit "Download photos and videos" button in the upper left side of the menu bar and it started to download my iCloud photos. I had this happen twice on two different PCs.

Good luck.

iCloud.com Photos stuck "Preparing your library…" for more than two weeks!

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