Will iCloud upload duplicates if it tries to upload a backed up library on a new computer?

Question

Level 1

11 points

Will iCloud upload duplicates if it tries to upload a backed up library on a new computer?

Background Information

I am running OS X El Capitan on my MacBook Pro. On my current installation, I have the Photos.app using a Photos Library on an external HDD. The Photos Library is 136gb and is synced with iCloud Photo Library where I have 200b of storage.

I reinstalled OS X, formatting the SSD, and got all my apps reinstalled. I then wanted to permanently keep my Photos Library on my internal SSD instead of the external HDD. I copied my Photos Library over to the SSD, held down Option and selected my 136gb Photos Library as the Photos.app library. I went into preferences and set this as my system default library for photos.

The question

When I open my 136gb Photo Library preferences in Photos.app the iCloud Photo Library option is unchecked. When I checked it, it warned me that I do not have enough storage in iCloud to fit 136b of photos. I only had 84gb remaining. It wanted me to upgrade my storage plan to 1TB. It doesn't look like it's smart enough to realize that the photo library I've got, the 136gb of photos & videos, is the same 136gb of photos & videos that it's looking at online.

When I tell Photos.app to just continue using my 200gb storage plan, it complains saying it won't be able to fit all of these photos on iCloud. Is it going to re-upload every photo in my library? Is it smart enough to analyze the photo libraries (Local and iCloud) and determine these all already exist in iCloud and thus don't need to be uploaded? I'm assuming it would, and in the end i'll have my library connected to iCloud and both places containing 136gb of data. The way their dialogs explain it though don't leave me feeling confident about this. The current status shows it is uploading everything again which makes me concerned about potential duplicates.

My ISP limits me to 250gb a month of bandwith, so re-downloading the library consumes half of our data for the month. I really want to just resume using the library I already had downloaded prior to formatting and re-installing OS X.

Any guidance would be awesome.

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X El Capitan (10.11.2)

Posted on Jan 9, 2016 9:05 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Best reply

léonie

Level 10

194,679 points

Jan 9, 2016 9:30 AM in response to Scionwest

Photos is uploading the complete library again at the least provocation. For example, if you repair your Photos Library, it will upload all photos again, but it is checking in iCloud for duplicates and will keep only one copy of identical photos. But uploading again will usually take as long as the initial upload, it may take even more time because of the matching against the photos in iCloud.

What you could have done instead would have been to create a new, empty Photos Library on the internal drive, enable this as the System Photo Library and your current iCloud Photos Library , and then wait for the photos to download back from iCloud. This will be quicker than uploading again. The only drawback would be, that the Faces thumbnails are not stored in iCloud, only the searchable faces tags, so you would have to recreate the faces. It will be quicker than the original assigning of faces, but still a lot of work.

Use Photos and iCloud Photo Library on multiple Mac computers - Apple Support

Reply

Answer 2

Scionwest Author

Level 1

11 points

Jan 9, 2016 9:45 AM in response to léonie

That's a horrible approach, they should fix that. If I was paying for 1TB of storage and had to re-download nearly a TB of photos and videos every time I reinstalled OS X I'd incur massive charges from my ISP. Every other storage provider on the internet keeps a manifest of files and won't re-upload what is already up there. I might have to re-evaluate keeping my photos in iCloud which is frustrating :/

Reply

Answer 3

léonie

Level 10

194,679 points

Jan 9, 2016 10:04 AM in response to Scionwest

That's a horrible approach, they should fix that.

You may want to use the feedback form to tell the developers: Apple - Photos - Feedback

It is really not user friendly and very wasteful to upload the images to compare them. It should suffice to compare the file attributes and not the files.

If I was paying for 1TB of storage and had to re-download nearly a TB of photos and videos every time I reinstalled OS X I'd incur massive charges from my ISP.

It is better not to move the library around. If you reinstall MacOS X, install on top of your current system and dont make a clean install, to preserve the identity of your library.

Reply

Answer 4

Scionwest Author

Level 1

11 points

Jan 9, 2016 1:06 PM in response to léonie

Unfortunately I had a botched Bootcamp install that was preventing me from restoring the Windows partition to HFS+. I had dealt with fixing it in the past but with all my stuff in the cloud or on external drives, it's just faster to format the SSD and reinstall fresh.

Thanks for the link, I will be sure to leave them feedback.

Reply

Answer 5

Feb 12, 2016 9:00 PM in response to Scionwest

I'm running into this issue too. I moved my Photos library to an ext HDD but now I can't reconnect that to iCloud Photo Library without re-uploading. Ugh.

Reply