Duplicates - Enabled iCloud, Had Photostream

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Duplicates - Enabled iCloud, Had Photostream

I just enabled "iCloud Photo Library" with "Download Originals to Mac". It started off by reporting that about 12,000 Photos were uploading. I checked iCloud Photos on the web as well as my iPhone and it is appears all of the photos are being duplicated in iCloud.

This is exactly what I was afraid would happen. Like many people I had "My Photo Stream" enabled for years. This of course caused all iPhone photos to be copied to Photos on my Mac. My iPhones were set to use iCloud.

I'm sure my scenario is not unique. And I thought Apple had written the logic to compare Mac OS Photos to iCloud Photos such that duplicates would not be uploaded when enabling iCloud Photo Library. No?

-- Mark

iMovie '11, macOS High Sierra (10.13.4)

Posted on Oct 14, 2018 3:36 PM

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Answer 1

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léonie

Level 10

194,813 points

Oct 16, 2018 12:16 AM in response to MarkSD100

Interestingly, if you export each, one is type .JPG and the other is .JPEG, which is about 20% of the size of the .JPG.

Is the pixel size (width and height in pixel) the same for the JPG and the JPEG files or do the JPEGs have a smaller width and height? If the width the JPEG is only 2048 pixels, they will be the images saved from My Photo Stream to the iPhone; they are just smaller versions for viewing on the iPhone and not duplicates of the full versions uploaded from your Mac.

When you are exporting the photos from www.icloud.com - are you exporting the unmodified original or the edited version? To the right of the download button is a nearly invisible, tiny "v" menu, where you can select the original or the edited version. The "JPEG" files you are downloading may be edited versions of HEIC files. Many image files in my iCloud are in the space saving HEIC format. When I download them from iCloud as the original, it will download a file with the extensions ".HEIC", but the edited version will be downloaded as ".jpeg". You switch between the edited version and the original for downloading here:

Trying both options, I get different downloads like these:

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Answer 2

markwmsn

Level 6

14,999 points

Oct 19, 2018 8:36 PM in response to MarkSD100

MarkSD100 wrote:

I don't believe this is actually possible. My Photo Stream transfers photos from the iPhone to Mac OS / OSX, not vice versa. My Photo Stream was implemented years ago as a means to upload photos (always full resolution) to a Mac. The actual setting is "Upload to My Photo Stream".

My Photo Stream did start out that way, and then you could select upload and download separately, but several releases ago it became complete bidirectional. In Mojave, the wording is explicit:

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Answer 3

léonie

Level 10

194,813 points

Oct 20, 2018 12:38 AM in response to MarkSD100

I don't believe this is actually possible. My Photo Stream transfers photos from the iPhone to Mac OS / OSX, not vice versa. My Photo Stream was implemented years ago as a means to upload photos (always full resolution) to a Mac. The actual setting is "Upload to My Photo Stream".

Your iPhone only uploads to My Photo Stream and does not download automatically, but the Mac will automatically import photos from my Photo Stream and upload new photos. And when you are working with the My Photo Stream photos on your iPhone and enlarge one of the photos uploaded from your Mac or another iOS device, your iPhone will download and save an additional version on your iPhone n the Camera Roll.

As long as you are using My Photo Stream alone to transfer photos between the Mac and the iPhone, all will be fine.
As long as you are using only iCloud Photo Library all will be well as well.

The dangerous moment is the transition from My Photo Stream to iCloud Photo Library. Turning on iCloud Photo Library on the iPhone will disable My Photo Stream automatically, but any photo you already saved from My Photo Stream on your iPhone to the Camera Roll will remain on the device - smaller version of the original in My Photo Stream.

These downloaded, smaller versions will now sync to iCloud Photo Library and from there to all other iCloud Photo Library devices.

I used to switch off iCloud Photo Library on my iOS devices while I have been traveling abroad without a decent internet and used only My Photo Steam while I have been away from home. And there have frequently been duplicated, smaller versions of some of my Mac photos with a width of 2048 pixels, after I enabled iCloud Photo Library again on the iPhone and iPad.

Once My Photo Library has become enabled, it is no longer possible to create duplicates by saving from My Photo Stream, because it will be hidden, if you turn it on again.

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Answer 4

MarkSD100 Author

Level 1

10 points

Oct 20, 2018 2:25 PM in response to léonie

Leonie - I appreciate the response but for the sake of others reading this thread, I don't believe it applies to what I experienced. Working with some excellent Apple support over the phone and screen sharing, I was able to show the issue of duplicates in iCloud and on my iPhone. We resolved it by simply creating a new Mac Photos library and letting everything sync. The interesting part is that the duplicates on my iPhone (with no changes to its settings) disappeared, as well as the duplicates in iCloud. This won't be for everyone - it worked for me because I have all of my originals for 10+ years from all phones/cameras in Lightroom which is where I've historically done edits and keywording. I was looking at migrating to Mac Photos but duplicates wasn't good!

As a recap, here's what led up to my duplicates:

5+ years ago had Photo Stream enabled on iPhone. No iCloud. Pictures copied to Mac (iPhoto).
About 3 years ago enabled iCloud on iPhone. Left Mac iPhone/Photos to obtain photos via Photo Stream. No duplicates created on phone when iCloud was enabled.
Week ago, enabled iCloud and disabled Photostream in Mac Photos - goal was 100% iCloud. Immediately started duplicating all photos, even ones taken on iPhone the day before. Duplicates showed up on iPhone and iCloud. If exported from iCloud, the files differed in file extension - one .JPG and one .JPEG.

Apple tech support theorized that if I had let the original Photos library run for a day it may have duplicated all 10,000 photos in iCloud and then circled back and cleaned them up. But the admitted that was a big risk and since creating a new library worked for me, we left it at that.

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Answer 5

léonie

Level 10

194,813 points

Oct 15, 2018 11:50 AM in response to MarkSD100

I checked iCloud Photos on the web as well as my iPhone and it is appears all of the photos are being duplicated in iCloud.

Are you really now seeing all photos twice in iCloud?

If you used My Photo Stream to transfer photos to the iPhone, you will not really have duplicates. Your iPhone is downloading the photos from my Photo Stream in a lesser resolution to the device. So all Photo Stream photos that the iPhone uploaded to iCloud Photo Library may be of a smaller pixel size.

iCloud Loto Library is avoiding exact duplicates in iCloud, but it will not consider the downsized versions of photos as a duplicates of the full-sized originals.

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Answer 6

MarkSD100 Author

Level 1

10 points

Oct 15, 2018 8:04 PM in response to léonie

>> If you used My Photo Stream to transfer photos to the iPhone, you will not really have duplicates. Your iPhone is downloading the photos from my Photo Stream in a lesser resolution to the device

I don't believe this is actually possible. My Photo Stream transfers photos from the iPhone to Mac OS / OSX, not vice versa. My Photo Stream was implemented years ago as a means to upload photos (always full resolution) to a Mac. The actual setting is "Upload to My Photo Stream".

>> Are you really now seeing all photos twice in iCloud?

Yes. If I log into iCloud photos through the browser, there are two files for each image. Considering iCloud on the web is only reading from the cloud, there has to be two images if you see two images. Interestingly, if you export each, one is type .JPG and the other is .JPEG, which is about 20% of the size of the .JPG. The strange part is these files should not yet have been "optimized" on the iPhone since they were just take this week and the iPhone had lots of free space. Checking some of the files in iCloud that have not yet been duplicated, they appear to be originals (type JPG and full resolution). So the mystery is why I'm getting duplicates with an extension .JPEG in iCloud.

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Duplicates - Enabled iCloud, Had Photostream

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