How long does it take to sync the first time when switching to a shared library?

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Level 1

22 points

How long does it take to sync the first time when switching to a shared library?

I have a rather large Photos library (about 70,000 photos, 600Gbyte) that used to be on one of the local Macs, and I synced the various iPhones by attaching them and using "sync photos" from the finder.

I have now gotten a 2TB iCloud account, turned on Family Sharing with all family members, converted Photos to use an iCloud library (with all originals downloaded to the main Mac), then converted to a Shared Photos library.

That was all done yesterday, and I have a pretty decent internet connection on the main Mac (60Mbps uplink, 600Mbps down). Photos on the main Mac has remained open.

However, all devices are seeing a different set of photos. Some see a few thousand, some see 10K, some see none, on the iCloud.com website I see the most (50K photos). No device (other than the main Mac) sees everything.

How long should I expect to wait before everything is synced?

And is there a way I can see how its progressing (similar to the Mail "activity window" or something)?

Parallels, macOS 10.13

Posted on Sep 11, 2023 03:15 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Dorain1

Community Specialist

Sep 12, 2023 11:29 AM in response to Hackerjack60

Hi Hackerjack60,

Thank you for reaching out and posting in Apple Support Communities.

We appreciate you sharing the number of photos along with the size. There is no set way of knowing how long it will take, but even with a good connection, you can expect a file 600 GB to take a while.

You can see the progress, here's what we found in Set up and use iCloud Photos - Apple Support.

Pause library uploads to iCloud

When you turn on iCloud Photos, the time it takes for your photos and videos to upload to iCloud depends on the size of your collection and your internet speed. If you have a large collection of photos and videos, your upload might take more time than usual. You can see the status and pause the upload for one day.

* On your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, open the Photos app, go to the Library tab, and tap All Photos. Then scroll to the bottom of your screen.

* On your Mac, open the Photos app. Select Library in the sidebar, then click All Photos in the list of tabs in the toolbar. Scroll to the bottom of your photos and click Pause.

Let us know if you have any questions.

Take care!

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Answer 2

léonie

Level 10

199,927 points

Sep 12, 2023 11:59 AM in response to Hackerjack60

Uploading a library into iCloud Photos is not just a problem of uploading the media files; Photos will create a Photos Library in iCloud. The new items you are uploading will be aded to the iCloud Photos Library. This requires a syncing of items- checking for duplicates and removing conflicts between similar items uploaded from different devices, perhaps in different albums or with different metadata. The more items are already in iCloud the longer a new upload will take.

When I first uploaded a shared iCloud Photos Library into iCloud it took roughly ten days for fifty thousands photos and videos, 250GB of media on my fast local internet. For a library of your size it may take even longer.

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Answer 3

Hackerjack60 Author

Level 1

22 points

Sep 18, 2023 02:35 AM in response to léonie

@Leonie thanks a lot! That is exactly the information I was looking for: I now know that I'll probably have to wait for about two weeks until the situation stabilises.

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