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Level 1

55 points

Why does Photo take so long up upload photos to iCloud?

We just upgraded to two iPhone 6Ss I have 19 GBytes of photos on my iMac Retina 27". I resisted using the iCloud storage for my photos, as I really don't need to see the whole library on all my mobile devices. I needed more iCloud storage to upgrade my phone, so purchased the 50 GBytes of iCloud storage and decided to upload the photos to iCloud.

It started uploading the photos last night about 11:00 pm. Today at about 4:00 pm I paused it as it was making my WiFi too slow to download the apps, etc. to complete the installation of our two new iPhone 6Ss.

I have watched it upload late at late night, early this morning and mid day. Doesn't seem to make a difference. Looks like it is uploading about ten to twenty photos per Minute as it uploaded about 250 Mbytes of data in an hour. That is about 41 Mbytes/minute or 69 Kbytes per second.

I have an Airport Extreme running WiFi at 5 GHz. My DSL is rated at 20 MBits/sec, but only gets about 16 BMits down, and around 1.5 MBits up (not sure it is that high).

But I'm seeing an upload data rate of about 69 Kbits per second with these photos.

Is Apple flooded with people uploading photos? Are their servers over loaded? Or do I have a problem on this end? I can send half a dozen photos, each over 2 Mbytes in an email and it will send it out in about ten seconds.

Apple's current philosophy seems to get as much stored on the iCloud as they can "force". It's a big jump from 5 GBytes to 50 GBytes. (but it is cheap, $1 per month). I'm about ready to stop migrating the photos to the iCloud and use my local disk on the iMac. My wife has twice as many photos to upload and is waiting for me to finish before she starts. At this rate we will be doing this for a couple of weeks.

Any suggestions, or direction before I pull the plug and forget about photo storage on the cloud??

iMac with Retina 5K display, OS X El Capitan (10.11), 3.5 GHz i5, 8 GB, 1 TB Fusion

Posted on Oct 27, 2015 4:19 PM

Best reply

Eric Root

Level 10

684,111 points

Posted on Oct 28, 2015 1:45 PM

Based on what people have posted in the past, the upload rates are extremely slow and for some people, it has taken a couple of weeks. Essentially, it is your choice whether or not to continue.

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20 replies

veehb

Level 1

14 points

Dec 2, 2015 5:41 AM in response to léonie

Thanks. That is what I had figured out. I must be uploading videos. It has been on one item all night and moving a Mbyte of data every ten seconds (less than one photo). At this rate, I'll be here into 2016. There must be a better way to do this!

I appreciate your help.

léonie

Level 10

195,151 points

Dec 2, 2015 7:07 AM in response to veehb

Do you need your videos in your iCloud Photo Library?

Consider to move the large videos to a different Photos library, that does not sync with iCloud.

veehb

Level 1

14 points

Dec 10, 2015 4:34 PM in response to veehbJ

It finally completed a few days ago after running around the clock for five weeks. All devices are now synced and display the photos and videos on iCloud. It took quite a while for all of the photos and videos to sync back from iCloud to the devices. We are seriously considering moving the long videos to a 64 GByte jump drive. These videos do not need to be on the cloud. Should have done this before starting the upload. I'll play with a few, but not sure how easy it will be to access the videos from the jump drive.

Dec 10, 2015 4:39 PM in response to veehb

I assume you're using a cable to router vs. wireless.

Good luck, Tom

léonie

Level 10

195,151 points

Dec 10, 2015 11:24 PM in response to veehb

If you want to keep the videos only local in your Photos library and not in iCloud, you could store them on the Jump drive and import them as referenced and not managed. Referenced items do not upload to iCloud Photo Library.

See this help page: Where are my imported files?

But a referenced library is harder to manage than an managed library. You would be responsible to keep the referenced videos safe.

A simpler solution would be to have a second library for your videos on the external drive. Only one library can sync with iCloud so the second library would be local only. see: https://help.apple.com/photos/mac/1.0/?lang=en#/pht6d60b524

Why does Photo take so long up upload photos to iCloud?