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Photos upload does not progress

Two weeks ago I decided to migrate all my photo's, about 20,000, to Photos.

Initially, the upload to iCloud worked fine and the photos/albums uploaded from my MacBook showed up on my iPhone too.

However, at some point, the upload progress stuck and it does not progress anymore. I read many topics about the issue but was unable to resolve it.

I have enough free space in my iCloud, I have a 200Gb plan and about 175 Gb is unused.

I created a smart album with items unable to upload, it is empty.

My home internet connection is very good, connected via glass fibre (100 Mb/s down- and upload plan).

Please help.

Posted on Mar 11, 2018 3:10 AM

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Posted on Mar 11, 2018 2:57 PM

- how do I recognise problematic file formats?

Photos does not help us to find problematic files. We cannot see, which photo or video it is currently trying to upload. Look for the most recent photo at www.icloud.com. The moments are sorted by dates. Which photo or video would come next?


Look at the filename extensions in Photos on your Mac. Make smart albums with rules like "Filename does not include .jpg" and combine these rules with "Match All".

Look in this smart album for files with unusual filename extensions. Then check, if you can find these files at www.icloud.com.

Problematic files could be TIFF files with unsupported color profile, audio files, PSD files, bmp files,PICT files, any older image format or graphics format, or videos with unsupported codecs.

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Mar 11, 2018 2:57 PM in response to VincentW

- how do I recognise problematic file formats?

Photos does not help us to find problematic files. We cannot see, which photo or video it is currently trying to upload. Look for the most recent photo at www.icloud.com. The moments are sorted by dates. Which photo or video would come next?


Look at the filename extensions in Photos on your Mac. Make smart albums with rules like "Filename does not include .jpg" and combine these rules with "Match All".

Look in this smart album for files with unusual filename extensions. Then check, if you can find these files at www.icloud.com.

Problematic files could be TIFF files with unsupported color profile, audio files, PSD files, bmp files,PICT files, any older image format or graphics format, or videos with unsupported codecs.

User uploaded file

Mar 12, 2018 8:06 AM in response to VincentW

Should I remove all of these from my libary?

Usually it should help to

  • export the suspects (File > Export > Export unmodified original) to a folder on your Desktop.
  • Then delete the exported images and videos from the library and empty the Trash.
  • Quit Photos, restart the Mac, launch Photos again.
  • Wait, if the syncing of the library now resumes.
  • If Photos is now syncing, wait for the iCloud upload to finish.
  • Then reimport the files that previously failed to sync. Do it in small groups of not too many files at once, so you can detect, which file is problematic.

Mar 11, 2018 10:48 AM in response to VincentW

My home internet connection is very good, connected via glass fibre (100 Mb/s down- and upload plan).

Are you using ethernet or Wi-Fi? Try to upload using Wi-Fi, and if you are using a VPN, disable it.

However, at some point, the upload progress stuck and it does not progress anymore.

Have you checked at www.icloud.com, how far the upload got? Can you tell from the photos and videos already in iCloud, which video or photo should be the next to upload, but cannot be uploaded?


You may want to search your library for problematic items -image files and videos win a format differnet from those, that could be uploaded. Look at the filename extensions in the Info panel.


Where is your Photos Library stored?

Which version of MacOS X is running on your Mac?

Mar 11, 2018 11:15 AM in response to léonie

Thanks for your reply. I will try to answer your questions one by one.

- I am using Wifi, there is no VPN active

- I have checked iCloud Photos and I see the folder/album/photo's as it was before my upload got stuck. How can I tell which photo or video would be 'next'? as I have many folders and albums that are synced.

- how do I recognise problematic file formats? I have checked my imported pictures and all show a preview. I have created a smart folder showing the ones that have problems uploading to iCloud and this folder is empty

- my photo library is stored in the default location: \username\pictures

- my MacOS version is 10.13.3


I ran EtreCheck, but cannot paste the report, this web page is complaining about invalid characters. I can see that some photo apps are using up a lot of CPU, but they do not generate any network traffic (0 sent/received in the network tab of Activity Monitor for all apps starting with Photo).

Mar 12, 2018 1:25 AM in response to léonie

It is not so easy to see which photo is up next, as I have many albums and folders, and I ran several imports, where some of those imports uploaded and some did not.

I tried your suggestion to find problematic filenames, but how to know that a filename is problematic? When it shows correctly in Photos, is it by definition non problematic? Or does iCloud have stricter standards?

Mar 12, 2018 4:33 AM in response to VincentW

I tried your suggestion to find problematic filenames, but how to know that a filename is problematic? When it shows correctly in Photos, is it by definition non problematic? Or does iCloud have stricter standards?

look at the filename extensions - .jpg, .tiff, etc. They will show you, if a photo or video has a different format from other files. Do you have the Finder > Preference > Advanced "Show all filename extensions" enabled?

If you migrated the Photos library from an older iPhoto Library or Aperture Library, you may have items in your Photos Library, that Photos cannot process. For example, I had to remove older .BMP files and .PICT files from my Photos Library, before the the library would upload.

I tried your suggestion to find problematic filenames, but how to know that a filename is problematic?

That is why I suggested to create a smart album, that excludes all photos with a file format that seems to upload correctly, for example all .JPG files. What is the file format of the photos that are left, when you exclude the .JPGs?

Mar 12, 2018 5:44 AM in response to léonie

I have about 700 pictures that are not jpg or mp4. they include png's, the new apple image format heic, tiff's. I do not have bmp's or pict's.

I am not migrating.

Should I remove all of these from my libary?

When I need to do that - remove so many photos and videos, what is the value of having Photos as main photo manager?

Mar 12, 2018 9:48 AM in response to léonie

This is not really an option for me, as these pictures are spread over multiple albums and I will loose the overview.

I decided to start from scratch but this is more difficult than I thought.

I want to delete my complete iCloud library. Do you have an idea how to do that?

What I tried:

- removing iCloud on all my devices

- removing the photo storage


However, I can only remove the photos in iCloud one by one.... and there's 2400 to go....

Mar 12, 2018 12:08 PM in response to LarryHN

I feel that I am completely out of options:

- your proposed method of deleting all suspicious file formats does not work for me, as 1) we cannot establish which file formats are not ok, and 2) when we define suspicious as all not being jpg and mp4 I have MANY files, spread over MANY albums and folders that I need to delete and this will basically destroy the integrity of my library

- I cannot start from scratch either as I cannot remove my photo library NOW


So I guess I have to live with Photo's without the iCloud part.

Mar 23, 2018 3:32 AM in response to léonie

My problem was resolved.

I set up a call with Apple support and they contacted some third line support with techies that would be able to do stuff to my iCloud.

They never got back to me although they promised to do so. But maybe they did something. I do not know.

What I did during the call: logged iPhone out of iCloud and logged in again. And after the call I logged my Mac out and in again.

The uploads resumed and after a few days, my 20,000+/190Gb photos and pics were in iCloud and all syncs fine.

Photos upload does not progress

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