Photos won't sync from Mac to iPhone or icloud.com

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Level 1

14 points

Photos won't sync from Mac to iPhone or icloud.com

I did the unthinkable: I migrated to Photos all my digital-camera-taken photos from 2003 to 2008, which were previously only saved locally on my machine. Thanks to Photos' helpful import assistant, I was able to preserve all of the original folder organization, which is quite complex.

But the photos, including the folders/albums in which they're organized, do not appear on my iPhone, nor on iCloud on web (icloud.com). Photos sync to iCloud is turned on for all my devices. What gives? What are possible solutions?

I really do not want to switch iCloud sync on and off for all my devices to see if that does it. I have so many photos that it will take days for all of them to sync to the cloud again. FWIW I pay for 200GB iCloud storage and space is not an issue here.

MacBook Air (2020 or later)

Posted on Nov 2, 2021 9:57 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Sparks0829

Community Specialist

Nov 3, 2021 9:03 AM in response to EnricaPelv

Hi there EnricaPelv,

We understand you're not seeing all the photos on your Mac in iCloud as expected. We're glad you've joined us in Apple Support Communities, and we can provide some guidance.

"iCloud Photos uploads photos and videos from your Mac System Library. Photos and videos that you keep outside of your System Library won't upload or update across your devices." To begin, where are your photos stored? You'll want to be sure they're stored in your System Photo Library. This support article should help:

Designate a System Photo Library in Photos

Afterwards, if that doesn't help, work through the suggested steps in this link:

Get help with iCloud Photos

We hope this information is helpful. Don’t hesitate to let us know if you have any more questions.

Cheers.

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Answer 2

EnricaPelv Author

Level 1

14 points

Nov 4, 2021 6:27 AM in response to Sparks0829

Thank you! This was helpful as it led me on the right path to figure out how to make sure all the new photos were uploaded:

Go to Check the status of your library in Photos for macOS > scroll to "If you see items 'On this Mac only'" > follow these steps:

From the menu bar in Photos, choose File > New Smart Album.
Name the Smart Album “Referenced” and set the conditions to “Photo is referenced”. Click OK.
Select the Referenced album in the sidebar.
Press Command-A to select all items in the album, then choose File > Consolidate.

This did it for me. Of course it took several hours for all the photos to be consolidated and show up across devices on iCloud.

Am I safe now to delete all my photos stored locally on my device, insofar as they're on iCloud and I do not touch the System Photo Library?

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Photos won't sync from Mac to iPhone or icloud.com

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