Photos app on iPhone not syncing in iOS 11

I see that this thread has been going on for some time and I am reticent to offer such a simple solution, but it worked for me.

You mentioned turning off both “iCloud Photo Library” and “Upload to my Photo Stream”. I assume that means that you previously had both settings on. So did I. When I switched off “Upload to my Photo Stream” on all my devices, this problem was resolved within a day (it takes time for all of the missing photos to upload or download, so the problem is not fixed immediately).

It appears, from my research, that there is no need to have both settings on. If you have iCloud Photo Library, you don‘t need “upload to my Photostream”. The iCloud Photo Library, if activated on all devices logged into the same iCloud account, already uploads all. The photostream is a short term syncing solution for those who do not want to pay for the storage for iCloud Photo Library.

So, once I turned Photo Stream off, and iCloud Photo Library on, on all my devices. It fixed the problem for me.

I said I was reticent to post, because I am not sure this will work for all, and because it seems silly that, if that is the problem, Apple would not warn people or, even better, make it impossible not to select both options at the same time.

So, for what it is worth, here are my current iPad Pro settings for Photos:

I've found that that photo app, on iPhone anyways, will pause uploading until you tap resume due to "saving battery consumption" or something like that grayed out on the bottom of the screen. To see this open the photos app, then select photos tab on the bottom left and make sure you're under the "moments" section, then scroll all the way down to the bottom to the most recent photos you've taken and you'll see the message there.

It seems that the problem occurs when there are photos on the iPhone/iPad that iTunes thinks are gone. I was also syncing successfully until one of the iOS 11 versions - don't know which one.

I would try to sync with iTunes with photos turned off. I think it asks if you want to remove the photos from the device - say yes.

On the iPad, then turn on iCloud backup. It will say that it needs to delete local pictures. Let it do so, then turn off iCloud. I cycled that a couple of times to ensure that they were all gone since I started with about 29GB of files. It took a couple of times to get all of them.

Go back to iTunes and sync a few photos to ensure they get transferred.

After reading some of the answers, I decided to log out of iCloud on both iPhone 7 (iOS 11.2.6) & Mac (High Sierra 10.13.3). I shut down iPhone and logged back into iCloud. I logged back into iCloud on iTunes on Mac. Clicked Sync Photos check box. The albums I had previously selected to sync where still showing. I clicked Apply. All photos copied!

I just started having this problem (March 2018) with iPhone 7 (iOS 11.2.6) & iTunes on Mac (High Sierra 10.13.3). Strange, but I have an ancient iPod Classic and all photos copy over. The only thing I can get onto my iPhone are "People", no albums or other photos. Spent hours on phone with Apple Help. No solution.

After reading some of the answers, I decided to log out of iCloud on both iPhone 7 & Mac.

I shut down iPhone and logged back into iCloud. I logged back into iCloud on iTunes on Mac. Clicked Sync Photos check box. The albums I had previously selected to sync where still showing. I clicked Apply. All I wanted photos copied! Everything looks perfect.

Seems to be fixed in iOS 11.4 and iTunes 12.7.4 and also seems OK with iTunes 12.7.5

Just to confirm that the problem does seem to be fixed with iOS 11.4 with iTunes 12.7.4 on my wife's iMac, synching to her iPhone7 and her iPad Mini. No problems on my iMac with iPhone7 and iPad Pro 2nd Generation.

After updating the iPhone and iPad to iOS11.4, to restore the synch from her free-standing library of photos on the iMac HD (not in Photos on the Mac), I did the following:

1. On the iPhone and iPad, go to Settings and open the iCloud settings.

2. Selected iCloud and then Photos and turned iCloud Photo Library On and then immediately Off.

3. On the Mac, opened the directory containing the photos to be synched and deleted the AppleTV Photo Cache (not everyone may have this) and the iPod Photo Cache.

4. Connected the iPhone and carried out a successful synch of all photographs.

5. Repeated steps 1, 2 and 4 with the iPad mini and carried out a successful synch of all photographs.

I then updated the iMac to iTunes 12.7.5 and repeated the synch without problem.

Thanks to everyone who persisted with reporting this issue to Apple.

John

iOS 12 resolved all of my photo syncing issues. I'm on iTunes 12.9.0.164. iOS 11 killed the syncing but iOS 12 works flawlessly. I even tested it by adding and removing pictures and albums. All good now on iPad and iPhone.

I think your issues will be resolved if you upgrade to iOS 12. You will lose FaceTime Live Photos which really hurts. That is one feature I used all the time.

The following worked for me on my iPhone 6 and iPad mini 4 (It was mentioned in a previous post as a link to another discussion): I also had this problem. Tried all types of resets and restores without any luck. What worked for me in the end was to use iTunes to sync a minimal number of photos which automatically turned off iCloud Photo Library on the iPad. After that finished on the iPad I turned on iCloud Photo Library and agreed to delete the photos I'd just synced and then it worked.

I ended up with a solution that at least, worked for me.

I had this same issue starting the last IOS update 11.0.3 and after I tried to restore a backup in a new iPhone 8. Both old iPhone and the new one stopped syncing photos and emptied all Albums.

I have the following: iPhone 8; IOS 11.1; iTunes 12.7.1.14 and Macbook Pro High Sierra 10.13.1.

What I did: I restored my phone to factory settings; re-created it as a new phone with iTunes and ticked all the items I wanted to sync including All photos, videos, albums... All came to the iPhone in the right place. Then I had to go through the painful process of downloading all the Apps, fix all settings, etc. It's working well now after several syncs, all is still in place... so far. Hope that helps.

Hi all,

I have been monitoring this thread and tried all the things suggested to no avail.

My photos where appearing as allocated icons (but with no preview) in my Photo app, but consistently was not able to retrieve via updates even when connected to wifi and plenty of space and latest ios and itunes. Although logging into my iCloud via browser, I know my old photos they did exist in the cloud, they were not being uploaded to my Iphone x. Restoring from backup also didnt work, with the some state as before, post update.

The only way I found to be able to repopulate my iphone x photos (around 40k photos), is by fresh set up iphone as a new iphone. This forced, as I believe corrupted memory allocations of the photos to be wiped permanently, and pull from icloud freshly. As my other important apps such as WhatsApp etc have their own backups, the pain is merely installing my apps again which is worth it as I can now access all my photos.

I hope this helps everyone and apologies if this is a workaround that has already been suggested. I'm just relieved to have the photos back and not have to wait for Apple for an official fix, which probably involved freshing wiping all photos and re-retreiving anyway.

Regards,

Tez

Got things working! ;-)

Problem: iPhone stuck uploading (comparing/checking) iCloud data

Solution: signing out of iCloud, waiting a couple hours, then signing in

At least, I “think” that’s what did it. Here’s some of the other changes I made:

-Off iCloud photo share

-on summarize photos

-after signing out of iCloud, force restart, enter pin, let it sit for awhile

-proper shutdown, turn on, enter pin, leave it alone for awhile

-wait at least a couple, maybe three?

-shutdown, plug in power cable, turn on

I'm 99% sure it was the sign out, wait awhile, then sign in. I've been told many many times from apple dudes to sign out, then sign in...but that doesn't really ever seem to work.

Not only did this restore iCloud photos, but handoff and universal clipboard are working ipad~macbook~iphone. I haven't tested browser history, but at least that's all working.

Hope this helps :-)

Hello guys after a lot of month maybe I solved the question!

1- on Mac go to your Photo library File system, right click, select "Show package contents", trash folder "iPod photo cache" and empty the trash

2 - then, always Mac, click "alt "+ "command" + "left mouse click" on Mac Photo app to repair your library (make a backup first)

3- After 1 and 2 restart your Mac and iOS device

4- open Photo app on Mac and leave it opened

5- link iOS device to Mac, open iTunes, go to "sync photo" and WAIT half an hour or 1 hour ( depends from the capacity of your library) till iTunes load all photos of library WITHOUT SYNCING

6- after this time you can CLICK on SYNC BUTTON

This proceedings solved problem you talked in this discussion!

I hope this will solve for all of you.

Good Bye and Good Luck!