photos not synching, easy way to do iCloud > USB?

[Fsiwtfrr]

I'm very close (sadly) after many years of being a macaddict, to changing my base OS to another UNIX or even LINUX flavor. I just lost a potential job because I was speaking to someone, told them about things I'd done, went to show them pictures but my iphone didn't have the pictures. My mac doesn't have them either. I have 5 different devices, all signed into the same ID, 3 of them have different numbers of pictures in my library. They all have extra space. My mac will NOT download all the pics, it's short about 700+ even though it does have many gb of free space. Same w. iPhone.
1) Is there a way to save pics from iCloud to a thumb drive? I could use that as a workaround.
2) WHY won't my devices, all 3 signed in with the same ID, synch pics?
3) Does anyone know of a usb-c/lightning thumb drive I can use w. iphone/ipad/mac? NOTE: ONE THAT ACTUALLY DOES WORK AND DOESN'T REQUIRE MALWARE SOFTWARE APPS.

 

[Rod]

Ian seems to be a bit of an expert on this topic so maybe he will chime in but I can say, since the loss of My Photo Stream other than swapping to Use iCloud Photo Library eg "Sync this phone" on all my devices I have ensured that on my Mac in Photos Settings > iCloud; Download Originals to this Mac is ticked.
That means that my Photos Library.photoslibrary in the Pictures folder should be a complete collection of all my Photos/videos.

Dragging that file to a USB flash drive would make a copy of it. There are USB drives with multiple connectors suitable for iPhones/iPads with built in file management apps but that doesn't really solve your problem. It is, as you say, just a workaround.
My iPhone has exactly the same number of Photos and Videos as in Photos on my MBP. Every time I open photos on my iPhone > All Photos I see the total number of photos/videos and a "syncing or synced with iCloud just now" message.

Yesterday i did a test with a photo taken on my iPhone, it took just over 1min 30secs for it to sync to my MBP and iPad.

 

[IWT]

Hi @Fsiwtfrr

Rod has been over kind in thinking of me as an expert, but here goes.

I have some questions as well as suggestions.

On what "device" were the photographs taken? I am assuming that it was an Apple device, most likely your iPhone??

Reason for asking is that if you took any or all of the photos with a non-Apple device - a camera for example - the photos would only get into the "Apple ecosystem" if you used a cable to attach the camera to your Mac and imported them into the Photos app (this can be done by opening the Photos app, clicking on the named camera on the left and importing from there- OR - by using Apple's Image Capture app).

Let us now assume all photos are in the Photos app on your Mac (strictly speaking they could all be on your iPhones' Photos app). The important point here is that the easiest way to start off on the journey is to have them ALL on one device if possible. It is not essential, but great if you can identify a device with them all.

OK. Let's look at the Settings on your devices - all 5 of them apparently.

On your Mac or Macs:

Open the Photos app, then Select Preferences and the following should be Ticked:

iCloud Photos
Download Originals to this Mac

"Optimise Mac Storage" should NOT be ticked (that causes all sorts of complications, particularly of you have that turned on in more than one device - come back to me if that IS ticked).

On your iPhone - and iPad (if you have that too). Go to Settings > Photos

iCloud Photos should be Ticked

(Let me know if "Shared Albums" are Ticked because that can lead to difficulties when there are so many devices involved.)

Just for my information - not critical but possibly relevant - under "Transfer to Mac or PC", have you selected "Automatic" or "Keep Originals"?
Although Apple makes no comment about this, I've found that all Apple Devices capable of taking photographs work better in terms of syncing if they all have the same choice. Personal view entirely!!


Once I get your responses, we might look at going online and entering your Apple ID > iCloud and looking at what's there and the settings etc. But not yet.

Hope this gives you some help on this difficult journey.

Ian

Ian

 

[IWT]

Any luck, @Fsiwtfrr? Do feel free to come back to us.

Ian

 

[Fsiwtfrr]

Hi @Fsiwtfrr

Rod has been over kind in thinking of me as an expert, but here goes.

I have some questions as well as suggestions.

On what "device" were the photographs taken? I am assuming that it was an Apple device, most likely your iPhone??

Reason for asking is that if you took any or all of the photos with a non-Apple device - a camera for example - the photos would only get into the "Apple ecosystem" if you used a cable to attach the camera to your Mac and imported them into the Photos app (this can be done by opening the Photos app, clicking on the named camera on the left and importing from there- OR - by using Apple's Image Capture app).

Let us now assume all photos are in the Photos app on your Mac (strictly speaking they could all be on your iPhones' Photos app). The important point here is that the easiest way to start off on the journey is to have them ALL on one device if possible. It is not essential, but great if you can identify a device with them all.

OK. Let's look at the Settings on your devices - all 5 of them apparently.

On your Mac or Macs:

Open the Photos app, then Select Preferences and the following should be Ticked:

iCloud Photos
Download Originals to this Mac

"Optimise Mac Storage" should NOT be ticked (that causes all sorts of complications, particularly of you have that turned on in more than one device - come back to me if that IS ticked).

On your iPhone - and iPad (if you have that too). Go to Settings > Photos

iCloud Photos should be Ticked

(Let me know if "Shared Albums" are Ticked because that can lead to difficulties when there are so many devices involved.)

Just for my information - not critical but possibly relevant - under "Transfer to Mac or PC", have you selected "Automatic" or "Keep Originals"?
Although Apple makes no comment about this, I've found that all Apple Devices capable of taking photographs work better in terms of syncing if they all have the same choice. Personal view entirely!!


Once I get your responses, we might look at going online and entering your Apple ID > iCloud and looking at what's there and the settings etc. But not yet.

Hope this gives you some help on this difficult journey.

Ian

Ian

Newest one: I went into settings and as an experiment I deselected Photos for iCloud, then reselected. When I did that I got a msg that said Open Photos to choose or create a library to use with iCloud Photos.
When I click on the photos icon it opens up the same library I get taken to when I click on the "Open Photos" button for the above message, but nothing changes. I wish I could just do a restore from clone the way I used to, when we actually had permission to clone OUR HARD DRIVES. At any rate, I'll keep experimenting. TYVM for your response. We have a family member who needs help so I won't be doing much for today and tomorrow aside from my job and trying to help the family member, but I'll get back to it hopefully on Sunday. Thanks again.

 

[MacInWin]

I wish I could just do a restore from clone the way I used to, when we actually had permission to clone OUR HARD DRIVES.

You can clone your drive. CCC and SuperDuper! both work just fine for that. What is harder to do, because it is not as essential for Apple Silicon Macs, is to make a bootable clone. It can be done, but it's not the same process to do it.

What does cloning have to do with syncing Photos?

 

[IWT]

@Fsiwtfrr

Did you follow the suggestions I made about settings on all your devices? I could help if you confirmed these, please.

I also asked you to verify whether "Optimise Mac Storage" had been initiated in any or all of your devices.

This is essential because if you had that on one or more devices, it could explain why each device shows a different number of photos - which was a major concern to you.

Equally, whether "Shared Albums" was ticked.

I know it's a bind going through all your settings on 5 devices; but it's you who has the problem and we are trying to help you solve it.

Ian

 

[Fsiwtfrr]

You can clone your drive. CCC and SuperDuper! both work just fine for that. What is harder to do, because it is not as essential for Apple Silicon Macs, is to make a bootable clone. It can be done, but it's not the same process to do it.

What does cloning have to do with syncing Photos?

I used to have a script I used to clone my mac. If something happened I could swap disks and boot back in about 2 minutes. Now it's a much longer process and I have to have internet to do it. As for cloning, obviously something has changed, which >>I DID NOT CHANGE<<, so booting to a backup would be a help.

 

[MacInWin]

I used to have a script I used to clone my mac. If something happened I could swap disks and boot back in about 2 minutes. Now it's a much longer process and I have to have internet to do it. As for cloning, obviously something has changed, which >>I DID NOT CHANGE<<, so booting to a backup would be a help.

What Mac? What version macOS? What model iPhone? What version iOS? Where did the script come from? What version of macOS was it written for/in?

 

[IWT]

When you've time and if you still want some help, may I, respectively, ask you to answer the questions I posed in post #3.

Ian

 

[Fsiwtfrr]

Hi @Fsiwtfrr

Rod has been over kind in thinking of me as an expert, but here goes.

I have some questions as well as suggestions.

On what "device" were the photographs taken? I am assuming that it was an Apple device, most likely your iPhone??

Reason for asking is that if you took any or all of the photos with a non-Apple device - a camera for example - the photos would only get into the "Apple ecosystem" if you used a cable to attach the camera to your Mac and imported them into the Photos app (this can be done by opening the Photos app, clicking on the named camera on the left and importing from there- OR - by using Apple's Image Capture app).

Let us now assume all photos are in the Photos app on your Mac (strictly speaking they could all be on your iPhones' Photos app). The important point here is that the easiest way to start off on the journey is to have them ALL on one device if possible. It is not essential, but great if you can identify a device with them all.

OK. Let's look at the Settings on your devices - all 5 of them apparently.

On your Mac or Macs:

Open the Photos app, then Select Preferences and the following should be Ticked:

iCloud Photos
Download Originals to this Mac

"Optimise Mac Storage" should NOT be ticked (that causes all sorts of complications, particularly of you have that turned on in more than one device - come back to me if that IS ticked).

On your iPhone - and iPad (if you have that too). Go to Settings > Photos

iCloud Photos should be Ticked

(Let me know if "Shared Albums" are Ticked because that can lead to difficulties when there are so many devices involved.)

Just for my information - not critical but possibly relevant - under "Transfer to Mac or PC", have you selected "Automatic" or "Keep Originals"?
Although Apple makes no comment about this, I've found that all Apple Devices capable of taking photographs work better in terms of syncing if they all have the same choice. Personal view entirely!!


Once I get your responses, we might look at going online and entering your Apple ID > iCloud and looking at what's there and the settings etc. But not yet.

Hope this gives you some help on this difficult journey.

Ian

Ian

Sorry for the delay in responding. Due to a crappy economy compounded by the C-word, I've had to get a new job, lower paying, and I've been very busy trying to make ends meet. So for questions: Most of the photos were IOS. ICloud Photos/Download Originals is ticked. Optimize is NOT. IOS devices, iCloud Photos is ticked. I don't do shared albums. Transfer to Mac=Automatic.
ALSO.. For some reason today when I tried the same step in troubleshooting, de-selecting iCloud Photos and telling it to download the photos since the pics were NOT synching, it started allegedly downloading. It's been saying that it's downloading for about 6 hours now.

 

[Fsiwtfrr]

What Mac? What version macOS? What model iPhone? What version iOS? Where did the script come from? What version of macOS was it written for/in?

I don't remember how long ago I wrote the script. It was many years, when I was a UNIX/Linux engineer. I created it, then updated it as things changed, until we lost privileges to copy the OS. I put it on the side and was planning on developing a workaround but I didnt have time to dig that deeply into the new OS to find out how to get it to work again since I've had to change jobs to a less technical position, and much lower pay. `