Icloud Photo Library Mac Not Syncing
I've had a multi-Mac household pretty much since college, rocking a laptop and desktop in addition to miscellaneous iOS devices throughout the years. Dropbox and iCloud sync made most of the pains of using several Macs disappear, but iPhoto was always a problem. My laptop is tiny! My iPhoto library, not so much.
Thankfully, Photos for Mac — paired with iCloud Photo Library's Optimize Storage feature — makes working with and syncing multiple Macs a breeze. Here's how you can do it.
How to use Photos and iCloud Photo Library with multiple Macs
Here's a quick, simple breakdown on setting up your Macs to support Photos and iCloud Photo Library.
I recommend starting with your biggest iPhoto library; it'll usually be on your desktop Mac. When you open Photos for the first time, your library should import automatically; if it prompts you to create a new library, your Photos library may be stored in another location on your Mac, and you may need to manually open it.
Once you've imported your biggest library on your Mac, make sure iCloud Photo Library is turned on and syncing. You can do this by following these steps:
My iCloud Photo Library was working great, but I ran out of space and it stopped syncing. Now I’ve bought more space and restarted my devices, but it is still not syncing. How can I get it to start. Oct 28, 2019 Source: iMore. How to back up your iCloud Photo Library; Now, open your other Mac, and launch Photos. If you have an iPhoto library on that secondary Mac, follow the same steps as above — import your library, then turn on iCloud Photo Library.If you have duplicates of the same photo on each computer, iCloud should automatically resolve those conflicts when it syncs, providing you with just.
- Launch Photos on your Mac.
- Click Photos in the menu bar.
Select Preferences (or do this quicker by pressing ⌘,).
Source: iMore
Click on the iCloud tab.
Source: iMore
Check off the box for iCloud Photos.
- You can also check off the box for Download Originals to this Mac if you have the space.
- You can check off Optimize Mac Storage to save space on your Mac by only saving a percentage of images and video locally — the rest will be thumbnails that you can click on to download when you want to.
Source: iMore
ICloud Photo syncing allows you to access photos taken from your iPhone from any device in your Apple ecosystem. But after updating to macOS Catalina, iClould photo library might stop syncing on your macOS 10.15 as one of the problems arising from the new update. Dec 06, 2019 These are all proven ways to fix iCloud photos not syncing on iPhone, iPad, Windows and Mac. If you want to get the faster transferring speed, you can use MobieTrans to transfer photos between iPhone/iPad/iPod touch/Android and computer flexibly. It is a good way to get rid of photo not syncing to iCloud and other drawbacks. Oct 04, 2017 Hi there, Setting up my new iPhone 8 Plus with iOS 11.0.2 and it won’t download my iCloud Library. I have tried rebooting iPhone, turning photos off in iCloud but nothing working. It just says updating with nothing downloaded. Is this a bug or am I doing something wrong?
Now, open your other Mac, and launch Photos. If you have an iPhoto library on that secondary Mac, follow the same steps as above — import your library, then turn on iCloud Photo Library. If you have duplicates of the same photo on each computer, iCloud should automatically resolve those conflicts when it syncs, providing you with just one version of your photos when the sync process finishes.
If you don't have an iPhoto library on your secondary Mac, create a new library in Photos and turn on iCloud Photo Library. If you want to save storage space on this secondary Mac, make sure Optimize Mac Storage is selected: This will save a certain percentage of images and video locally to your device, while providing thumbnails of all the others for you to download at your leisure.
After you've set up all your Macs with Photos and the sync process has finished, you're now good to go. From here on out, any time you add photos, they'll sync to every computer you've set up with Photos.
What syncs, what doesn't sync
Photos for Mac syncs a lot more than just your original photos and videos. According to a support document on Apple.com, here's what else you should expect to see sync:
- All folders and albums
- Smart Albums
- Keywords
- Memories
- Searchable keywords
- Key photo selections
There are a few things iCloud Photo Library won't sync, however. Here's Apple's list:
- Books, cards, calendars, and slideshows
- Keyword shortcuts
- Unused keywords
- Last imported album on the Mac in question
- Names and faces in the People album
For those not using iCloud Photo Library
If you've chosen not to enable iCloud Photo Library, Apple still offers you free syncing of your last 1000 photos via My Photo Stream, which doesn't count toward your iCloud disk space.
This will sync and download images you've imported or taken on other devices, but you won't have the option to optimize your storage or sync your albums.
Octoober 2019: Updated for macOS Catalina.
Serenity Caldwell contributed to an earlier version of this guide.
macOS Catalina
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If you turn on iCloud Photo Library on your device like iPhone, iPad, Mac and PC, your device will automatically upload and store your entire library in iCloud, which enables you to access your photos and videos from all your devices. Convenient as it is, there is not without problems. One of the commonest problems while using iCloud Photo Library is 'iCloud Photo Library Not Syncing'. No matter you're bothered by 'iCloud Photo Library not downloading to iPhone' or 'iCloud Photo Library not syncing to PC', you can read this article and learn how to help yourself out within minutes.
Fixes to 'iCloud Photo Library not syncing'
Tip 1: Share photos without iCloud (FREE)
Want to share photos between iOS devices or between iOS device and computer via iCloud and find iCloud Photo Library not working as you expect? Don't worry. You can use another completely free method to sync photos between two iOS devices or between iOS device and computer, which is to use EaseUS MobiMover Free. With MobiMover installed on your PC, you can transfer files between iOS devices (iPhone/iPad in iOS 8 or later) or between iOS device and computer without any cost or limitation. In addition to photos, you can also transfer videos, audios, contacts, messages, notes, calendars, and more to or out of your iDevice. The steps below will show you how to sync photos from iPhone to iPhone. If you want to know how to transfer photos from iPhone to PC or from PC to iPhone, you can learn how to make it from the complete guide of EaseUS MobiMover.
Step 1. Connect your iPhones to your computer. Open EaseUS MobiMover, then go to > Pictures > Photos. You can also use the data transfer feature to download all the photos from iPhone to iPhone at a time.
Step 2. Choose the photos or albums you want to move from one iPhone to another (set the source and target iPhones correctly by clicking the phone icon on the top toolbar). You can choose to transfer all the photos at once or specific images selectively.
Step 3. Click 'To Another Phone' to start transferring photos from iPhone to another. When it has done, go to your target device to check the items in the 'Photos' app.
Tip 2: Turn on iCloud Photo Library on your iPhone/PC
No matter you are facing the 'iCloud Photo Library not downloading to iPhone' or 'iCloud Photo Library not syncing to PC', you first need to check whether you have turned on the option on your devices.
- On iPhone: In iOS 11, go to Settings > [your name] > iCloud > Photos and then toggle on iCloud Photo Library. In iOS or earlier, choosing iCloud directly after opening Settings.
- On PC: Click the iCloud icon in your taskbar and choose Open iCloud Settings. Make sure Photos option in checked and tap on Options next to it. Then click the checkbox next to iCloud Photo Library.
Tip 3: Check Apple ID on your devices
To sync photos across your devices with iCloud, you need to make sure you have signed in to iCloud with the same Apple ID. Or 'iCloud Photo Library not updating' will be the result. You can check the Apple ID on your iPhone by going to Settings and on your computer by opening iCloud.
Tip 4: Check your iCloud storage
Photos always account for most of your iCloud storage. Thus you'd better make sure there is enough iCloud storage available for your photos to be uploaded successfully. When your iCloud Photo Library is not syncing, updating or downloading, you can check your iCloud storage and learn how to clear up your iCloud storage from the steps below.
How to check iCloud storage:
- On iPhone: In iOS 11, go to Settings > [your name] > iCloud and then you will see how much space left in your iCloud storage. In iOS 10 or earlier, go to Settings > iCloud instead.
- On PC: Click the iCloud icon in your taskbar and choose Open iCloud Settings. Then you will see the free storage left.
Mac Icloud Photo Library Not Updating
How to manage iCloud storage:
In that folder I have the following files: Adobe, Apple Computer, ASUS WebStorage, dvdcss, Micromedia, Microsoft, Skype and vlc. When I write aacs it’s give me an error. I only could find C:UsersMYUSERNAMEAppDataRoaming. C library files download. Can you tell me what I can do so I could install the codecs and could see the Blu-ray disc.
On iPhone: Go to Settings > [your name] > iCloud > Manage Storage, click the category you'd like to remove from your iCloud storage and choose Disable & Delete.
On PC: Open iCloud and choose Storage in the window. To free up your iCloud storage, you can either click the category and choose Delete Documents & Data or disable the option directly.
Tip 5: Check the network connection on your devices
Stable network connection is required for your iCloud Photo Library to be synced. Test the network connection on your iPhone and computer by opening a browser on your device and then visit a website. If there is something wrong with it, fix it first and then see where the 'iCloud Photo Library not showing' problem is solved. (WiFi isn't working on your iPhone in iOS 11? Learn how to cope with it from the solutions provided.)
Icloud Photo Library Mac Not Syncing To Computer
Tip 6: Re-sign into iCloud
If none of the possible cause introduced above fits your situation, you can sign out of iCloud and then sign back in to have a try. You'd better back up your iPhone to the computer first to avoid accidental data loss.
On iPhone:
- Go to Settings > [your name] and scroll down to click Sign Out.
- Enter your Apple ID password if you have turned on Find My iPhone and then follow the prompt to sign out of iCloud.
- Force restart your iPhone.
- Go to Settings to sign in to iCloud and then see whether iCloud photos are synced to your iPhone.
On PC:
- Tap on the iCloud icon in your Windows taskbar and choose Open iCloud Settings.
- Click Sign Out in the iCloud window.
- Tap on the iCloud icon in the taskbar and choose Sign In.