Photos Syncing With iCloud Paused
I just ran into an iCloud issue I’d not seen before. Photos on my Mac now shows “Syncing with iCloud Paused. Optimizing System Performance” at the bottom of the photos grid. It’s not clear to me what this means because the Mac is essentially idle and not running on battery power.
There’s a Sync Now blue text “button,” and when I click it I get an alert that says:
Resume Syncing with iCloud
Syncing with iCloud is paused to optimize system performance. Would you like to resume syncing for four hours?
I clicked Resume, but nothing seemed happened. The main window still says that syncing is paused and still offers the Sync Now button that seemingly doesn’t do anything. I left it overnight and nothing has changed. Syncing is still paused—showing gray thumbnails for photos not downloaded—and Sync Now is still inoperable.
Previously:
Update (2024-05-02): I had restarted the Mac earlier, but I restarted it again this morning and now it is syncing again.
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Same thing here, except it was an iPad and wanted to pause for one hour instead of four. Didn't try logging off iCloud, but rebooting the 100% charged (and cord plugged in) iPad made no difference.
Guess it must be Apple ID related.
This is the typical message due to overheating or extremely low battery. Perhaps it bugged out somehow? Alternatively, if it is plugged in heat from the battery charging may be the cause.
I had the same problem last year. The amount of photos on my Mac have differed from the amount of photos on my iPhone.
Sync stopped for no obvious reason. After going through some photos I somehow found out that one photo must have gone corrupted. After the deletion of that one photo the sync went on without any further problems.
@Anonymous It’s a Mac mini. There is no battery.
This is my experience with all syncing services, not just Apple.
I've been having this every day since Sonoma and iOS 17. Even with full battery life, even on WiFi. It's been very frustrating always having to initiate the sync.
@Anonymous To be clear, the issue I had was that even clicking the button wouldn’t initiate the sync.
This seems to be part of a general tendency of syncing to be restricted in certain circumstances. I've noticed it also with Messages in iCloud, which is always paused no matter what when on cell service (which ironically makes it impractical to use an iPhone for extended periods without Wi-Fi, even when it is used for Mac tethering).
Having to tell my phone or iPad to sync photos is very annoying as it pauses itself very often. I would prefer it to just always auto sync if above say 20% battery life.
Starting very recently (14.4.1?) my Mac Pro is pausing syncing photos. There is no battery concern, it is plugged into ethernet, and the CPU is mostly idle. What could possibly be the reasoning for this?
It's incredible that Apple is still so clumsy with cloud services, and that they don't provide any power-user option to fix this junk or even analyze what's actually going on. It seems like most of the time, the solution is "Log out of iCloud, restart your device, then log back in" which is totally idiotic.