Downloading iCloud Photo Library is Stuck

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Downloading iCloud Photo Library is Stuck

Almost identical to a question raised back in 2018, I'm trying to download my Photo Library from iCloud to an external hard drive, so I have an offline backup. I have formatted the external drive as APFS and set it to be the System Photo Library. There is nearly 4 TB of memory available on the (Seagate Ultra Touch) external drive. My Photo Library is large (about 120,000 items). The Photos Preferences iCloud window says "Downloading 33,665 items" (with 83,364 syncing from iCloud) but it's been stuck on that number for hours and it doesn't seem to be doing any downloading. Any ideas on how to get it moving? Note that it started very quickly, downloading the initial 33,665 items in under an hour. Then it stopped and has not moved overnight. The Activity Monitor shows 0 (zero) cpu time being used for Photos.

iMac 24″, macOS 15.6

Posted on Sep 25, 2025 1:33 AM

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Answer 1

Sep 25, 2025 8:53 AM in response to gavin2254

I don't know what "The Photos Preferences iCloud window" is. What does Photos say at the bottom of the Library view?

Or at System Settings>[name]>iCloud>Photos? Do you have Optimize Storage turned on?

It sounds like you're doing everything right. It's possible that there is a corrupt file that's causing the download to get stuck. Videos are the usual culprit, but normally, corrupt files are caught before they ever get to iCloud, so that would be odd.

Even though doing the same thing and expecting different results is the first sign of dementia, I'd try starting over again. It's possible that it won't be doing exactly the same thing.

Let us know what you find…

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