iCloud photo library always uploading

[davidb8]

All my photos have synced from my MacBook to my iPhone and I also have it set to optimise the storage.

Yet last night and still today the phone says it is UPLOADING over 3000 images!!!

How can this be right if the photos aren't even originally on the phone. Nothing I add to the photos app now on Mac will sync across as the phone is uploading 3000 images that are not even on the phone.


How do I stop it syncing?!?

 

[gsmornot]

Two things I have found to help when facing this issue.

1) Leave the photos app open and on the photos tab. Last time I had this issue I turned the screen lock off and just left the phone connected to power. It took a few hours but did complete.

2) I have twice now had to turn iCloud Photo Library off and then back on again. It might tell you something will happen to your photos but if they are all in your photo drive space in iCloud you have nothing to fear. If you turn off then back on, consider option 1 to force the photos to update faster.

 

[davidb8]

I'm not sure what it is updating though. All my photos should be up to date.

3,489 items to go!

think I will turn it off and on again. Then it should only sync the preview photos from iCloud right?

 

[davidb8]

I turned iCloud photo library off and it said all photos would be removed but will stay in iCloud etc.

No photos were removed off the phone.

When I turned it back on I get this message (attached) and it carries on uploading the 3000+ photos.

I don't understand how it can be uploading to iCloud when the photos are stored in iCloud not on the phone?!?!

 

[Dolorian]

Why don't you just let it finish that upload and then see if everything works fine after that?

 

[davidb8]

I will have to as I don't see any other option. I just don't see what it could possibly be uploading

 

[Vanilla Face]

Unless you got your phone recently and are actually still restoring it, go ahead and stop the restore by going to Settings > iCloud > backup

 

[Abazigal]

Two things I have found to help when facing this issue.

1) Leave the photos app open and on the photos tab. Last time I had this issue I turned the screen lock off and just left the phone connected to power. It took a few hours but did complete.

2) I have twice now had to turn iCloud Photo Library off and then back on again. It might tell you something will happen to your photos but if they are all in your photo drive space in iCloud you have nothing to fear. If you turn off then back on, consider option 1 to force the photos to update faster.

This. It's not explicitly stated, but I found that the photos uploaded to icloud only in the photos app. If you leave your phone on at the icloud section of the settings app, it will upload like maybe a few photos and then stop there.

Subsequently, my photos will sync in the background.

 

[Kai Hawaii]

The question remains, what exactly is uploaded there. This looks not like it is designed to do that. I have a similar case, after around 13k photos were synced, it suddenly want to upload 14.8k photos to icloud. But those photos on my iPhone were downloaded from icloud. And I certainly don't want to wait now for it, especially because in worst case it could mess up my icloud photo database with double photos...

 

[davidb8]

now photos app on iOS is saying 2,308 photos 54 videos.

photos app on OS X is saying 3,833 photos 104 videos.

it can't make its mind up.

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lol...

iphone has finished uploading its mystery photos...

and is now DOWNLOADING 3000 photos!!!

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how do i start over? and sync everything from OS X.

 

[gsmornot]

Just give it some time.

One thing to note, even when you tell it you want optimized photos the full size photos are on your device unless they just wont fit. Optimized will show you a number that is much smaller than the actual size of your photo collection. In reality, if you have the space on your device it will store a full copy there but not report it to you in the usage data. If you want to verify this connect to iTunes and look at the space usage on your device. It will look different than what you see via settings-usage. Anyhow, back to your photo sync.

Do you see a different number of photos and videos on iCloud.com than what you see on your device?