How to force upload of all pics to iCloud?

[Jdhommert]

I have a 256gb iPhone, I want to buy a smaller one this time. I have about 130gb of photos on my phone, and now have 2gb of iCloud storage. I want all the pics to upload to the cloud so my backup is much smaller, because what I'm sure will happen is if I use my current backup and try to put it on a 64/128 gb phone and it will tell me that the backup size is too big and it can't/won't work on my new phone and then I'm just SOL.

Is there anyway at all to do this easily? I know it is supposed to gradually make space as needed, so I was thinking if nobody has a better idea, I could just download a ton of long ass podcasts or something and hopefully I could get it to get rid of most if not all of the space on my phone currently....


Help is greatly appreciated! 😀

 

[jsmith189]

Just turn on iCloud Photo Library, it'll upload everything in your camera roll.

 

[Jdhommert]

Just turn on iCloud Photo Library, it'll upload everything in your camera roll.

Its already on. It says it just uploads as needed to make space, still have a ton of pics on my phone
[doublepost=1505094891][/doublepost]Unless you're telling me for sure that toggling it will trigger everything to upload to the cloud...

 

[jsmith189]

Its already on. It says it just uploads as needed to make space, still have a ton of pics on my phone
[doublepost=1505094891][/doublepost]Unless you're telling me for sure that toggling it will trigger everything to upload to the cloud...

Yeah, turning it on should trigger the upload, and there should be a status bar somewhere in the settings telling you the progress.

Alternatively, you can check it by opening Photos on a Mac, or logging into iCloud.com and opening Photos there. You should see everything that's in your iCloud Photo Library.

Unless the process has changed since I did it! Lol.

 

[Jdhommert]

Yeah, turning it on should trigger the upload, and there should be a status bar somewhere in the settings telling you the progress.

Alternatively, you can check it by opening Photos on a Mac, or logging into iCloud.com and opening Photos there. You should see everything that's in your iCloud Photo Library.

Unless the process has changed since I did it! Lol.

Hmm. Perhaps I'll have to give the toggle trick a try. Thanks.

 

[jsmith189]

Hmm. Perhaps I'll have to give the toggle trick a try. Thanks.

You also have to be on WiFi for it to upload. Also, make sure you check "optimize storage". This will over time remove the old images and videos from storage and onto the cloud. Again, pretty sure that's how it works lol.

 

[Jdhommert]

Well, that didn't work because I need 55gb more space to download all the crap that I have in the cloud to even turn it off...wont even let me do a quick toggle (well I could but the only way is to delete all the stuff thats in the cloud and not get it back on my phone).......so unless anyone else has an answer, I'll be stuck doing the max out my phone with other crap to try to force it all to upload to iCloud

 

[Peter K.]

Its already on. It says it just uploads as needed to make space, still have a ton of pics on my phone
[doublepost=1505094891][/doublepost]Unless you're telling me for sure that toggling it will trigger everything to upload to the cloud...

I understand your question, but I do not know the answer. I remember when I set both of my daughters' iPads to "optimize storage", or whatever that is called exactly. It seemed to take days, or even weeks, before all the photos were uploaded to the cloud and converted to "thumbnail" versions on the devices.

I was puzzled at how slowly both processes happened.
[doublepost=1505095781][/doublepost]I was so slow at composing my reply (watching football) that several replies were posted in the meantime.

 

[Givmeabrek]

Move all pics to your PC. Clear out your phone and make a new backup. Restore the backup to a new phone. Start fresh.

 

[Jdhommert]

I understand your question, but I do not know the answer. I remember when I set both of my daughters' iPads to "optimize storage", or whatever that is called exactly. It seemed to take days, or even weeks, before all the photos were uploaded to the cloud and converted to "thumbnail" versions on the devices.

I was puzzled at how slowly both processes happened.

ya it took days for the original upload or whatever, I think I screwed myself because at one time I accidentally turned on keep all photos on the iPhone, but then turned optimize storage and still have 136 GB of crap on my phone I don't need and I don't want this to screw me over if I buy a smaller iPhone in a few weeks
[doublepost=1505096407][/doublepost]

Move all pics to your PC. Clear out your phone and make a new backup. Restore the backup to a new phone. Start fresh.

Wont work for 2 reasons
1. I'd have to download all the pics from the cloud to the phone which I'm 55gb short on doing
2. Even if I somehow did it straight to my computer, I bought a 256gb MBP and don't have the space on there too....I suppose I could somehow use my old windows computer and externals if I *had* to...

I just started a massive download of lots of GBs of podcasts, so we'll see what happens...

Open for more ideas 🙂

 

[snowtrooper1966]

You could temporarily increase your iCloud storage and toggle on "optimize storage" in iCloud photo settings on the iPhone.
That should minimize the backup of the device in time for you to have a manageable size for the new one

 

[Jdhommert]

You could temporarily increase your iCloud storage and toggle on "optimize storage" in iCloud photo settings on the iPhone.
That should minimize the backup of the device in time for you to have a manageable size for the new one

How would this do anything? I already have the 2GB iCloud plan, and I only use 250gb of it or so, and I already have optimize storage turned on

 

[snowtrooper1966]

I apparently misunderstand you.

How many photos do you have in your iPhone?
I thought I had a large library on my device of 9,xxx @ 32GB, LOL

My photos libraries were out of control for both my iMac desktop and my iPhone, tons of duplicates.

I turned off iCloud storage for photos 2 months ago in anticipation of finally consolidating.

I upgraded my desktop last month to a new 2017 27", so before it arrived over the course of three days I trimmed my 80+GB library down from 14,xxx down to 6,xxx. I then put them all on my new external hard drive.
Once the new iMac arrived, I just redirected iPhoto to look there for the photos so my on board SSD is freed up.

I've now just finished over the course of three days reduced my iPhone photo library from 9,xxx to 2,657, reducing my backup of 32GB down to just a few (anticipated, literally JUST got done managing this, backup will occur tonite while asleep)

Tomorrow I will turn iCloud storage back on the iPhone and iMac, and select "optimize storage" on the mobile.

Once the libraries unify, I will have to go back in and manage duplicates one more time and some final telweaking of folders, but it will be nice to finally have this managed.
This is 11+ years of family / work and home based business photo mismanagement that will now be properly sorted.

Sounds to me like you may need to spend some time'dighing into your libraries.

If I were paying for 2TB of iCloud storage monthly, and that was not enough, I'd definitely be reaching out to Apple support for help and reconsidering how I was managing photos....

 

[Jdhommert]

2TB is more than plenty, I only use about 250GB of it. I have plenty of storage for whatever I need, I just wanted to get the photos off my phone and in the cloud only so I can get my backup/restore file to the appropriate size. I'm trying to buy smaller storage size devices from now on and use the cloud to supplement that.

I'm just doing my original idea and it's working. I filled up my device with podcasts and stuff from Netflix and refreshed my photos and it instantly deleted 80GB worth of photos. Filling it back up now to get more off the phone.

 

[Peter K.]

2TB is more than plenty, I only use about 250GB of it. I have plenty of storage for whatever I need, I just wanted to get the photos off my phone and in the cloud only so I can get my backup/restore file to the appropriate size. I'm trying to buy smaller storage size devices from now on and use the cloud to supplement that.

I'm just doing my original idea and it's working. I filled up my device with podcasts and stuff from Netflix and refreshed my photos and it instantly deleted 80GB worth of photos. Filling it back up now to get more off the phone.

Good thinking; I was able to forget it and let it go until "both processes" finished, but that's a great idea.

 

[TGB77]

I'm having a similar problem. Not all my photos are uploading. Some of the photos are clearly on the iPhone (verified by connecting to Windows computer and browsing to see the original there), but aren't uploading. Is there a way to force them to upload? Or am I reduced to there being some mysterious reason they aren't uploading and have to upload them from my local backup?

 

[christianaguero]

FIXED!
I had kind of the same issue, had space in iCloud but my photos were not being uploaded. So I did:

Deactivated iCloud Photos (10 photos were deleted from my iPhone but kept in iCloud) activated it again, went to the Photos app and saw a warning saying that the upload was paused because it was in "save battery mode" when the iPhone wasn't, however, it gives you an option to resume upload, just click on it and that's it!

 

[friedmud]

This thread shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how iCloud photos and the “optimize storage” option work.

When you use iCloud photos, have enough online space, and select “optimize storage”. It will upload ALL of your _full resolution_ photos to iCloud. There is a progress bar for this at the bottom of “All Photos” on your phone.

When it does that it does NOT remove the files from your phone. Over time it will replace the least viewed photos on your phone with low resolution versions... to save space. It will be more aggressive about doing this the closer you get to filling up your phone’s internal storage.

It will always keep some photos as high-resolution for at least a little while after you take them.

Throughout this though: iCloud is storing the “true”, high-resolution copy of your photo.

If you get a new phone (even with less storage than your old one) and you link it with your iCloud account it will instantly download low-resolution versions of your photos... and then grab some high-resolution ones too (generally the newest ones) until it is using a “reasonable amount of your phone’s storage.

Again: if you start running low on storage in your phone... Photos will store less high-resolution photos and use less room.

Essentially: turn it on and forget it. How much storage it says photos are taking on your phone is just what it’s taking _at that moment_ and can grow or shrink depending on how much free space you have on your phone.