Photos and iCloud

[klind]

Looking to gain a bit of knowledge as concerns the subject.

I am running the latest version of MacOS Ventura on last year's MacBook Pro. Internet speed testing indicates that I do about 9Mbs down and a bit less than 2Mbs up.

I have system Photos on an external SSD drive connected via USB. It was created there a few days ago and I imported about 18K photos from a different external hard drive. I also turned on iCloud photos at that time. Initially the system uploaded a few photos and seemed to just stop. I waited several hours and nothing seemed to be happening. The Memories tab shows "No Memories... Memories will appear here when more photos and videos are added to the library". The People tab shows "0 Photos Scanned... Photos will continue scanning your remaining 18,828 photos when you're not using the app and your Mac is connected to power". Because of this last message, I made sure to connect my Mac directly to power and I closed the application. A question here is does the application need be closed or simply not be actively used?

This went on for a couple days during which the only thing I could see happening was that my iPhone number of Photos would increase by one or two photos per hour.

Then my Mac lost connection to the external SSD drive. This happened because I connected my Apple Mouse in order to recharge it's battery. I received a message indicating that USB power usage was too high. I moved the mouse recharge to an external charger and re-connected the external SSD. Now the bottom of the Mac Photos Library shows "18,626 Photos and 202 Videos... Restoring from iCloud". It has read this way for over two days. The Memories and People tabs have not changed. I can see all my photos in the Library tab. Meanwhile the iPhone Photos app shows 1,024 Recents, 17 People and 363 Places and doesn't appear to be changing.

I am now thinking that I should stop everything, delete everything and start anew creating the library on the MacBook SSD and then move it later. At the rate things are going it'll be a couple years getting the 18K photos into an iCloud library.

Is there a way to monitor what is happening between my MacBook and iCloud as pertains to Photos?

Would it help if I import a lessor number of photos at a time? What number of imports at a time is suggested?

Any advice will be appreciated.

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hello,

Yes, that is a large library that will take quite a while for the initial sync up to iCloud Photos, especially with the ~2 Mbps upload speed, as that is only 0.25 MB/sec maximum throughput.

You would need to keep the Photos application open for it to continue scanning for People/Memories, as it performs that action when the Mac is awake and connected to AC, the Photos application is open, and the Mac is not actively being used. Overnight is a good time for it to do its thing.

Good move to charge your Apple Magic Mouse using its cable in the AC adapter brick for your iPhone/iPad, to prevent the overload of USB power draw on the Mac. How many USB devices are connected?

I don't use iCloud Photos myself, but I believe when it is syncing, there is a progress bar: Check the status of your library in Photos for macOS.

It may take a while for the photos to show on your phone as well, since they are syncing up to iCloud Photos, being proicessed/indexed, then syncing to your iPhone.

You could let it continue to see if it completes, and start over if you don't continue to see progress.

C