El Capitan (10.11.5) Photos App suddenly has 24000 items it's adding to iCloud Photo Library

Question

El Capitan (10.11.5) Photos App suddenly has 24000 items it's adding to iCloud Photo Library

I import my iPhone photos regularly to the Photos app on my MacBook pro - maybe like 10 - 100 per week. This past week I noticed a major speed decrease on both computer and network speed.

Looked it up in Activity Monitor and Photos app is taking up a lot on both CPU and network. I opened up Photos > Preferences and saw it needed to load ~24,000 items.

What does this mean? Why is this happening? Should I be worried?

Device Details:

OS X El Capitan (10.11.5)

Mac Book Pro (Retina, 15 in, Early 2013)

Processor: 2.7 GHz Intel Core i7

Memory: 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3

Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M 1024 MB

Free Space on Macintosh HD: 12GB

Link to the Specs: MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Early 2013) - Technical Specifications

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X El Capitan (10.11.5)

Posted on Jul 18, 2016 6:15 PM

Reply

Answer 1

LarryHN

Level 10

106,142 points

Jul 18, 2016 7:47 PM in response to travismccarra

It means that your library is being uploaded to your iCloud Photo Library as you requested and are also optimizing the photos on your Mac which takes CPU cycles too - for 23,000 items this will take some time (mine took about ten days for 7000 items)

iCloud Photo Library - Apple Support

LN

Reply

Answer 2

Jul 19, 2016 7:30 AM in response to LarryHN

Thanks for chiming in, LarryHN.

That might make sense if it was some sort of optimization or list checking, however, these are all items that were already uploaded to the iCloud Photo Library (50k photos uploaded to iCloud Photo Library in mid 2015 [took ~2 weeks and some change] and have been accessible on all my devices since then). Every time I import photos from iPhone to MacBook, I wait for the upload to iCloud to finish.

Reply

Answer 3

léonie

Level 10

200,723 points

Jul 19, 2016 7:41 AM in response to travismccarra

There may be many reasons for uploading the Photos Library again - have a look at this user tip:

Why is iCloud uploading my entire iCloud Photo library again after I moved its location?

https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-9822

There are many reasons for iCloud to upload the library again and to merge it again with iCloud:

When you move the library to a different drive.

When you restore the library from a backup.

When you switch the iCloud library temporarily to a different library and back to your original library.

When you enable My Photo Stream for a different library, for example an Aperture library and then switch back.

When you repair your current iCloud Library.

All these events will cause Photos to upload the library again to iCloud and to compare it to the current iCloud Photo Library in iCloud.

If your Photos Library is large, be prepared for a long upload time if you repair your Photos Library, change its location, or disable iCloud Photo Library. Sometimes there is no help for it, but uploading the library again may take a week or longer, depending on the size of your library.

Does one of these reasons apply in your case?

Photos may also decide to repair (and upload) your library, without asking, if Photos crashed to often.

Reply

Answer 4

Jul 19, 2016 8:46 AM in response to léonie

Hi léonie, no, unfortunately none of those reasons apply in my case. I don't think I've ever had the Photos app crash on me.

Reply

Answer 5

léonie

Level 10

200,723 points

Jul 19, 2016 9:13 AM in response to travismccarra

Did you just upgrade the operating system to a new version?

Reply

Answer 6

LarryHN

Level 10

106,142 points

Jul 19, 2016 9:30 AM in response to travismccarra

Hard to say since we have no idea about what is going on or has gone on on your system - basically if something happens so iCloud is disconnected and reconnected from the library then the library has to be "uploaded" to verify integrity - many things can cause this but in the end it really does not matter - you can not hurry it (except by keeping your Mac awake and on WiFi) and you can not stop it - all you can do is let it finish

We could make guesses for weeks and maybe not figure it out but none of that changes that the only option now is to let it finish (or stop using ICPL)

LN

Reply