apple photos sync to icloud unusable

Question

apple photos sync to icloud unusable

Hi

I have an iMac (27 inch, mid 2011) running OS X 10.11.3. I usually upload all my photos to my Dropbox Pro account from my iPhone and from other family phones using the Camera Uploads folder option.

I bought a new iPhone 6 and decided it was time to look again at best way to manage my photos and decided to give Photos and iCloud a try. I reduced the photos in my Camera Uploads from around 15,000 down to around 10,000 images taking up around 22GB of space on the disk. I put these into Photos on my Mac and paid for the upgrade to 50 GB storage on iCloud.

On my iMac I switched on the iCloud Photo Library option in the iCloud settings to automatically upload and store entire library in iCloud and chose the option to Download originals to this Mac. On my Iphone I did the same but chose to optimise iPhone storage.

I thought that from this point onwards that iCloud sync would work in a similar fashion to dropbox. I expected to switch on syncing at night to avoid disrupting our work at home during the day or kids playing online in the evening. I thought that it might take a week or more to sync and that I'd be able to easily follow progress (which is what I usually do if I have several GB to sync on dropbox). However, the sync just didn't seem to work well and uploads were taking a long time to upload very little content. I tried syncing during the day but unlike with dropbox syncing to iCloud prevents any other bandwidth taking place - no one can do anything online at the same time.

Dropbox is syncing several GB of files at the moment while icloud sync is paused and the kids are playing Playstation Plus on-line and the wife is watching a youtube video. If I want to get there attention I can simply pause the dropbox syncing and switch on iCloud sync of the Photos and within a few minutes they won't be able to do anything online at all and they will start shouting at me :-)

I've been looking for solutions online and read articles about iCloud sync of photos flooding broadband http://www.macworld.com/article/2911211/photos-app-floods-broadband-while-seedin g-the-cloud.html and work arounds to throttle the upload using Network Link Conditioner https://mayallit.wordpress.com/2015/04/23/how-to-fix-apple-photos-icloud-photo-l ibrary-upload-using-network-link-conditi… but the overall slowness of the sync compared to dropbox and reports that the problem will be ongoing every time it syncs a few photos that it's going to kill my internet has meant that I'm now thinking of giving up trying to sync my Photos using iCloud. I would prefer to pause the syncing for now but you can only pause for a day and then it automatically resumes.

I'm going to switch off syncing to iCloud completely for the moment and hope that Apple might address these issues in a coming update. I'm also going to have to remove all those optimised photos from the iPhone as they are being uploaded to Camera Uploads on dropbox along with the originals.

Does anyone know if Apple will do anything about these issues:

sync speed compared to dropbox is much, much slower
upload to iCloud prevents other internet traffic taking place at same time
can only pause sync for a day and can't control when it is on or off

Or do Apple and others in the community feel that syncing works OK for most people and that there isn't an issue? I'm not in a rush to downgrade the iCloud storage as it's fairly cheap but I don't have much use of it if I can't actually sync my photos.

iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.4), 3.1 GHz i5 8GB DDR3

Posted on Feb 14, 2016 6:17 AM

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Answer 1

jwadedog

Level 1

4 points

Dec 4, 2017 9:57 PM in response to Kevan Cummins

Pretty much exactly what I've found.

iCloud seems to lack any features whatsoever but yet fails at its core task, not that you can really tell.

In Apples quest to make it as easy and "magical" as possible they've totally forsaken usability. It would be brilliant if you could schedule when you want syncing to take place or limit the upload speed to ensure it doesn't saturate your upstream connection which then kills your downstream.

It's just simple things that would make it "just work". I could forgive the hassle of poor internet speeds while syncing if it got it done quickly but it's extremely slow. I tried google photo's and was syncing the original files and had it throttled (yes all other cloud storage platforms have this feature) to keep internet usable and it was syncing 600-700 files a day with the ability to see progress much better than any iCloud options. On a good day iCloud will sync a 100-200 photos and others nothing. I will leave it running and absolutely nothing happens, you can't see why because they decided to build no windows into this magical box they call iCloud.

I'm continuing to give it a go but odds are after a few months of trying to sync I'll probably end up bailing to Google Photos.

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Answer 2

Feb 14, 2016 6:34 AM in response to Kevan Cummins

Does anyone know if Apple will do anything about these two issues:

sync speed compared to dropbox is much, much slower

Dropbox isn't Photos. Firstly it doesn't sync it just copies, secondly it doesn't contain any of the additional data about the photos that Photos does. The two services are completely different.

I've used dropbox from time to time, I rarely add photos from the library on my Mac so I can't really comment about how quickly things are done from the Mac, but when I take photos on my phone, iCloud photo library wins hands down when it comes to speed. Indeed I'd go so far as to say dropbox on the phone is a complete PITA when you shoot a lot of photos at once like I do as a surveyor. I can rely on my photos being ready to use on my Mac shortly after I get back to the office with iCloud Photo Library, not so dropbox.

upload to iCloud prevents other internet traffic taking place at same time

I'm unable to replicate your experience, I suspect you have an issue with your home network.

Or does Apple and others in the community feel that syncing works OK for most people and that there isn't an issue?

That is indeed what I have found. Initial sync of the library was a pain, but it's been just fine since.

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Answer 3

Feb 14, 2016 9:52 PM in response to Winston Churchill

I'm not really looking for syncing across all devices but a solution to manage and store my photos from my Mac - hence why i put this discussion in the iMac to iCloud discussion group.

The syncing all photos across devices is also something that could do with more control to allow user to control which albums etc to sync. Having option to have all photos at original or optimised is not really a solution when you have a 16GB phone. Having optimised photos as well as originals means I now have double the number of photos and could cause problems with dropbox where I also store photos.

There isn't a problem with my home network for anything else other than iCloud sync and others appear to have same problem as me. I can't pause for more than a day so have had to switch off icloud sync.

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Answer 4

Feb 15, 2016 4:00 AM in response to Kevan Cummins

I'm not really looking for syncing across all devices but a solution to manage and store my photos from my Mac - hence why i put this discussion in the iMac to iCloud discussion group.

Actually you put a couple of questions at the bottom of a few paragraphs of observations, I just tried to answer them, however if you aren't really looking to sync content across all your devices then you might be better with dropbox.

The syncing all photos across devices is also something that could do with more control to allow user to control which albums etc to sync.

You've been able to do that for years and still can, some want everything everywhere and that's what iCloud Photo library does,

Having option to have all photos at original or optimised is not really a solution when you have a 16GB phone.

I can only assume you have an incorrect understanding of how this works, that's exactly the situation that optimisation is for.

Having optimised photos as well as originals means I now have double the number of photos

You have either or, you don't have both.

There isn't a problem with my home network

I'm inclined to find that a questionable statement, iCloud library works perfectly well for me and hundreds of millions of others, we all have the same software but different equipment and networks, where do you think the problem is likely to be.

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Answer 5

Apr 5, 2016 6:18 PM in response to Kevan Cummins

While it's easy for other users who don't understand to blame the network connection and not the product (same can go either way), I will put in my $.02.

I work in the tier 3 level of an ISP. We get calls all the time from customers reporting "Slow/internet drops". When we check the modem readings and they are running iCloud do you know what we see? We can see them capping their upstream CH..this means if a customer has 5 upload, that they use all 5 upload while iCloud is running. We have had customers disable iCloud while they report no internet and we see the upload Ch clear up and look healthy. Then suddenly the customer can browse again.

Doesn't take a ISP tech to see this though...if you disable this one program and everything resumes fine...well there you have it.

Solution? None at the moment. Apple refuses to add a throttle feature or a way to set a time for backup. If you check with other ISPs, this happens on many other ISPs.

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