Photos not syncing from Mac to iOS devices

Since updating my iPhone, iPad and Macbook to the latest versions, I also experience issues with syncing Photos and Videos via Finder.

I import images from my iPhone or iPad with Photos and check remove to prevent duplicates after completing the sync. The import / removing goes well. My Mac receives the new images and my iPhone / iPad camera roll gets cleaned up.

Syncing however seems to work partially. I haven't got everything syned back to my iPhone and iPad. The missing images seem random. I am missing ± 300 files on a 20K file library. It's obvious to see that some of my latest photos are missing but it might be older ones too.

Hopefully Apple is aware of what causes this. Before 18.5 / 15.5 everything seemed to work (after a long period where it did not.) I hope it does not take very long to fix.

By "syncing" I'm guessing that you mean selective transfer, not synchronizing Libraries, making the Libraries exactly the same as with iCloud-- is that right? And you're using the Finder for this?

I'm not sure what's going on, but try these things to help narrow things down:

• Restart the computer (of course)
• Re-start in Safe Mode. This bypasses certain potentially disruptive processes, and it often helps. Safe Mode is different for different computers, so see this: 

           Start up your Mac in safe mode - Apple Support 

• Use another library if you have one, or make a small test Library with a few pictures in it and see if the same thing happens. You can create a new Library by closing Photos and then option-clicking on the Photos icon.
• Make a new user and see if the same problem recurs with it
• Rebuild your Photos Library--close Photos and re-launch by option-command-clicking the app icon.

The idea is to find out if the problem is with the Library, with your account, or with caches and login items, and stuff like that. One of these steps may fix the problem, but their failure to work also helps figure out what's happening.

Let us know what happens…

> Did you leave it at another place other than this discussion? Might add mine as well if there is another place to put this on the radar of the engineers.

Product Feedback - Apple

Or maybe for more structured feedback:

https://feedbackassistant.apple.com

But don't hold your breath waiting for an answer or fix.

pshill84 wrote:

By "syncing", I mean connecting my iPhone and iPad to my Mac with a USB cabe and clicking "Sync" in the Finder window. I do not use iCloud syncing. I have selected specific photo albums and music playlists for syncing.

Syncing Photos albums via Finder & USB to iPhone/iPad has always been more or less flaky.

It seemed a little better until recently I had numerous images and movies that failed to sync no matter what. For example (macOS 15.5, iPadOS 18.5):

I unsynced and then re-synced an album that had been gradually updated during the last months suspecting that the updates did not properly go to the Photos database but nevertheless numerous images on the iPad were not synced.

I then emptied the iPad completely by a) syncing an empty dummy iCloud Photos to it or/and an empty Finder folder to it, and also deleted iPod Photo Cache folder inside Photos library (backup and be careful if you try this because Photos library package's contents should generally not be messed with) and then synced some albums. Previously that iPod Photo Cache reset had helped. But not this time.

I then nuked the whole Photos library and created it from scratch (I have originals archived in plain Finder folders on external HDDs). But again numerous images and movies failed to sync. After I did a few more syncs and added some more albums to be synced, then some images and movies missing from the previous syncs started to appear but I have not checked how many images and movie might still be missing.

So repeated syncs might yield better results.

<sigh> This flaky sync has been an issue for a long time. A few years ago I got so frustrated that I even emailed Tim Cook and asked if he was aware of this issue, but got only a lukewarm reply from some of his secretaries suggesting a phone consultation from the support staff although I already had provided all details via email. So no "Jobsian moment" when an average user complaining to the top level gets things fixed :-/

Matti,

I'm guessing this all happens with Finder Sync? Can you use Image Capture to transfer to Finder folders and then import to Photos? Image Capture only works one way, of course, so how about using an external drive and the Files app on the iPad? Any of that work?

I think that Apple is paying less attention to Finder "syncing."

Richard.Taylor wrote:

I'm guessing this all happens with Finder Sync? Can you use Image Capture to transfer to Finder folders and then import to Photos? Image Capture only works one way, of course, so how about using an external drive and the Files app on the iPad? Any of that work?

I think that Apple is paying less attention to Finder "syncing."

Yes, I have synced Mac Photos library albums via Finder & USB to iPad.

I recently tested also iCloud Photos and bought 2 TB iCloud Drive space hoping that I could fit all 450 GB library (36 000 images and 3 000 movies) to it and also share it to my family of six. But some family members' iOS and macOS were slightly too old for iCloud Photos family sharing, one iOS 18 iPhone could not accept invitation at all, and the final embarrassing culprit was when one user's all old personal iPhone images spilled to other users' shared images.

So I downgraded to just 200 GB iCloud and back to local sync. I have used iPhone/iPad Files.app in a more limited scale for images.

pshill84 wrote: … File transfers are no problem.

That's great! I've never had confidence in the USB cable thing, and it looks like now Apple is less and less interested in it. Using a small ssd is really simple now that iPhones and iPads have USBc ports. If I were not using iCloud, I would do the transfers that way.

I am having the same problem with my Macbook Pro (M3 on Sequoia 15.5) and iPhone 14 Pro. I always select "Delete items after import" in the Photos app when importing photos from the phone. Then I create albums and sync them back to the device so I can find the photos in an organized fashion. Or at least, that's what I used to do for many, many years. Now, only partial album contents appear. I have been a USB cable sync user for well over a decade. It always worked fine until now. I am not interested in using iCloud for this.

Honestly, my workaround for now has been to use Google Photos and have it automatically backup everything from my Camera Roll. When I organize photos into Albums on Google Photos, the albums always contain all of the photos & videos when I open them. But that's effectively like using iCloud only because none of the files are ON the device. But, I've come to trust that my albums on Google will reflect when I intended whereas albums on my iPhone have become unreliable and leave me wondering where my photos & videos went? (They're still ON the Mac, though.) Our business runs on Google Workspace, so there's a good reason for sync'ing to both platforms; but I prefer to work from iPhone while in transit, and I want all the content on my local device so I can work with it easily.

Our company recently hosted an exhibitor booth at a local pride festival, and I'll share with you screenshots that illustrate the problem. On the Mac - 59 items; on the iPhone - 16 items. On the iPhone, the "Library" (formerly camera roll?) does not contain any of the items that are not in the album, either, so there seems to be a gap in terms of what is being sent over, not just organized correctly into the album.

The iPhone has more than enough storage capacity for all of the content. I can't figure out what to try next to resolve this. I miss how reliable this used to be.

The 16 items that synced back to the iPhone are 14 photos and 2 videos. It should have been 43 photos and 16 videos.

If anyone can help me resolve this, I will be happy to find a way to compensate you for your knowledge & time. I am trying to avoid dealing with the "geniuses" at the Apple store.

So after updating both to 15.6 on my Macbook and 18.6.1 on my iPhone 14 Pro Max and 13 Mini, syncing seem to work again.

I am still having a few missing files (total count differs approx. ±150 - 200 on my 21,5K library.) It does seem to work like before, I remember having a different total count on mobile devices before.

My iPad isn't updated and yet it seems to sync again. May be it was a MacOS issue.

Glad it seems solved here.

Are you having luck too?

You tell us the number of pictures in the albums. But are the 200 pictures in your Library? You might look in Recently Saved or Imports or sort your Library by Recently Added.

How does using an external drive work for transferring pictures?