Any way to throttle photo upload?

There is an option to pause the upload for a day. I would suggest doing that when you need to get other work done.

In my case (I have a fast internet connection) the photo upload (~12K photos) is going _very_ slowly. I am expecting it to take a week or more. No impact on my overall network performance.

David

This is geeky but seems to work: Use Apple's Network Link Conditioner (NLC) to limit the upload speed from your computer.

1. Download the NLC system preference from the Apple Developer's site. It is part of the Hardware IO Tools.
2. Install the NLC system preference.
3. Open the NLC system preference and create a new profile.
4. Limit the Uplink speed. I chose about 60% of my available uplink bandwidth and that seems to work OK.
5. Set the Downlink limit to something at least close to your ISP's bandwidth or above.

You'll probably need to play around with the limits. Remember that it affects all of the network traffic in and out of the computer so something like a Time Capsule backup might go really, really slowly.

Here's the setting I used:

Photos > Preferences > iCloud > click on the Pause for one day button.

You can resume upload at any time. I suggest doing that when you're not using your Mac and at night.

Yes, uploading 400 GB of data at your slow connection will take many days.

Thanks so much for the info on NLC.

This finally solved my issue with Photos!!!

thanks David. my connection went from 70mbps to 3-16mbps once i turned on the iCloud upload.

just to clarify for those not familiar with the developer download page, uncheck everything but developer tools, then look for:

Hardware I/O tools for Xcode

i used v 7 beta and it works fine

once it downloads, open the .dmg, then double click on the Network Link Conditioner and it will get added to your preferences pane.

Hi, I somehow scrambled some command line magic in order to throttle only outgoing PORT 443. That way only Photos (and maybe other uploads you use from the browser?) get throttled. I needed this so that the throttling does not interfere with time machine backups and other stuff.

** DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK **

First step:

Edit the file /etc/pf.conf (might need administrator privileges. Remember to back up!!) and add this at the very end (you can change "com.pda" to something else if you want):

# com.pda icloud throttling

dummynet-anchor "com.pda"

anchor "com.pda"

Second step:

Create a new file called "dummynet" (you can change the name as well), and put it somewhere safe (i.e. /Users/<youruser>/) That new file must have this single line:

dummynet out quick proto tcp from any to any port 443 pipe 1

Third step:

Create a new file called "port443throttle.sh" with these contents, and put it somewhere safe (i.e. /Users/<your username>/):

#/bin/bash

sudo dnctl -f flush

sudo pfctl -f /etc/pf.conf

sudo pfctl -a com.pda -f /Users/<your username>/dummynet

# Change 3Mbit/s to whatever you like, its the maximum upload speed setting

sudo dnctl pipe 1 config bw 3Mbit/s

sudo pfctl -e

Fourth step:

Do this on terminal:

sudo chmod +x /Users/<your username>/port443throttle.sh

sudo /Users/<your username>/port443throttle.sh

Terminal will ask for your administrator password. Done!

Disable max upload speed:

If you want to revert changes for a while, you just have to do this in terminal:

sudo dnctl pipe 1 config bw 0

Disable the pipe throttling:

Just revert the changes on pf.conf and do this on terminal:

sudo dnctl -f flush

sudo pfctl -f /etc/pf.conf

Good luck!

pdazero-- nice post; I like how you limit traffic shaping to outbound port 443. Network Link Conditioner is pretty useful but it applies to *all* outbound traffic, not just port 443.

I ended up implementing a simpler way of achieving the same result using the same essential technique. I put the solution write-up (along with relevant scripts) here:

https://earthalbumblog.wordpress.com/2016/01/03/black-magic-throttling-uploads-t o-amazon-cloud-drive-google-drive-and-ic…

My wife was getting irritated at me because I kept sopping up all of the outbound Internet traffic; this fixed it. Hope this helps someone else!

NLC sounds like a good thing, but ultimately it is just a workaround. The "real" solution is to get one's home gateway to implement something to deal with buffer bloat - fq_codel, pie, or cake depending I suppose - they are all Active Queue Management (AQM) mechanisms which the home gateway firmware writers aught to be including in their firmware. Because it is at the home gateway where the uplink bottleneck resides and that is where it should be addressed. I'm presently trying to find such functionality to go into my own home gateway, an NVG589 via AT&T U-verse, so whenever one of my kids uploads a video I can still do all my old fuddy-duddy Internet things 🙂 If I cannot find a working home gateway firmware I'll have to fall back on the NLC workaround.