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iCloud photos not downloading to Mac Photos 5.0

Photos I take on iPhone are automatically uploaded to iCloud photos. In mid February I lost a iPhone X - dropped off a boat at sea. It had several photos that had not uploaded to iCloud (out of range). Got a iPhone 11 Pro Max the next day, and its upload & download with iCloud is just fine. But Photos (5.0) on MacBook Pro (Catalina, updates kept current) hasn't dowloaded a single iCloud photo since then. Storage space is not a problem - iCloud has a more than 1 TB available and MacBook has 77 GB. How do I get Photos to resume downloading from iCloud?


iPhone 11 Pro Max

Posted on Dec 25, 2020 5:04 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Dec 25, 2020 11:18 PM

What does the sync status say at the bottom of the all photos view? Here is mine:


Is the photos library set as the system library (check photos preferences, is the button greyed out?)

In the icloud tab of preferences, is iCloud turned on?



If all this looks OK, some people have been able to get sync running again by (again in photos preferences) turning off iCloud sync waiting for a few minutes and turning it back on again. Be aware though if you do this, it might trigger a complete sync of your library - which might be problematic due to the size of your library compared to the free space you have on your mac.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Dec 25, 2020 11:18 PM in response to StopTheRain!

What does the sync status say at the bottom of the all photos view? Here is mine:


Is the photos library set as the system library (check photos preferences, is the button greyed out?)

In the icloud tab of preferences, is iCloud turned on?



If all this looks OK, some people have been able to get sync running again by (again in photos preferences) turning off iCloud sync waiting for a few minutes and turning it back on again. Be aware though if you do this, it might trigger a complete sync of your library - which might be problematic due to the size of your library compared to the free space you have on your mac.

iCloud photos not downloading to Mac Photos 5.0

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