You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

💡 Did you know?

⏺ If you can't accept iCloud Terms and Conditions... Learn more >

⏺ If you don't see your iCloud notes in the Notes app... Learn more >

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

iCloud photo library stuck uploading

My Photos upload to iCloud Photo Library stopped about two weeks ago. It states at the bottom: "19 731 Photos, 1 389 Videos, Uploading 21 707 items". The last one hasn't change since the problem first occurred. Sometimes the whole disappears and I can see "Restoring...". Anyone has any idea how to make it work again?


- iPhone 6S+ 128 GB, 15 GB free space. Photos make up 34 GB on the device itself. Photos on iCloud make up 112 GB.


- iOS 9.3.4.


- Yes, I did read the similar threads. Nothing there suggested seems to be working.


- I checked iCloud.com, the new photos are not there.


- Yes, I do have a strong internet connection (15 Mbps upload), and it works perfectly. I even tried other wifi connection in several different locations.


- I did restarting the app, reboot, hard reset, switching off/on photo stream, iCloud photo library, logged out/in from iCloud several times, delete recently deleted photos, made some favourites, even deleted the last photo which is not uploaded. Nothing seems to be working.


- Shared folders do work.


- Google Photos app upload works perfectly.


- There is no other problems with any other iCloud service.


- I have the 1 TB iCloud storage started about a year ago, approx. 78% is free.


- Photos app background activity drains 28% of the whole, but not one new photo is uploaded. I can't even switch this off.

Posted on Aug 14, 2016 9:49 AM

Reply
13 replies

Nov 8, 2017 5:51 PM in response to zinacef

Yeah why is this uploading to iCloud such a process? It’s 2017 isn’t there enough technology to zip photos/videos/documents into the cloud without all the time and devices freezing etc. My laptop seems like it’s gonna burst from so many restarts after fans get all hyper from all this uploading mayhem. THEN even after looking up many tutorial links and being on chat support thinking all is well, all my devices have iCloud activated yet my latest photos are still not syncing! And photos I take on iPhone are not showing up in MAC Photos.


F—ing lame, why did Apple discontinue iPhotos in the first place??? Have never liked Photos in general and now this iCloud BS is killing me!

Aug 16, 2016 9:26 AM in response to balazs288

It gets even weirder. About 20 of the missing photos are now on iCloud, but about 500 is still not there. It does not seems to be updating, at least no new photos has been uploaded in the last 3-4 hours.


Also I had to sign back to Keychain, but even though I received the text message (sometimes with 5 minute lag...), and typed it in, iPhone (iCloud?) couldn't finish it, without any reason.


What the ..... is wrong with you Apple? Is it really that hard to provide the (not cheap) service you promised?


Apple Support is not patient. They called me, I wasn't available, they sent me an email, that they're available 30 more minutes. Should I call them again, or wait? Any experience?


In the meantime, I'm begging you, please if you have any hint, how to fix this, please do share with me.

Aug 16, 2016 10:39 AM in response to zinacef

I only have about 500 photos, the rest is already uploaded to iCloud during the recent years. Also, now it stopped again. I expect this kind of service not only faster, and more accurate, but consistent. This is something I've never experienced either from Google, or Dropbox. The most likely is, that Apple's servers just can't keep up the pace of the new phones and photos.

Aug 17, 2016 11:33 PM in response to balazs288

Some news.


I'm in contact with the Apple Support, we've talked for 3 times already. Now it's at the engineering team. They say, that I should make a copy of everything, before they do anything, but it seems impossible, as Apple doesn't have anything like Google Takeout. Saving manually would take months. 😟


They also suggested to upload to iCloud.com directly from my Mac. It said it's uploaded, but doesn't show there or any device. So it must be an iCloud problem.


In the meantime Siri forgot everything about me, she says she doesn't know who I am (and my girlfriend, sister, father etc.), which worked perfectly until yesterday.


Still any help would be appreciated.

iCloud photo library stuck uploading

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.