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iCloud to PC problems

Rennie Heuer

Rennie Heuer

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Constantine, MI
For the past week or so I've been having issues with my iCloud photo library. Pictures I take with my phone or iPad go to the cloud and can be seen on either of those devices, but they are not showing up on my PC's "iCloud photos" file. Additionally, I can't seem to download any of the photos I can see. I try to download and the appropriate window pops up but sticks at 0% till it eventually says there was a problem and do I want to try again.

It seems as though the link between my PC and iCloud account is broken, but I can't figure out how to fix it. I've restarted iCloud and the PC, checked for app updates, etc. Nothing changes.

I should note that I can access my iCloud account through my browser and all my pic are there and can be downloaded without problem. :huh:

Anyone else ever experience this?
 
Rennie, I just have a tablet which I store pictures taken with camera and the tablet. The other day I went to photos and nothing. Tried cloud nothing. I'll have my son look at it next time he's here. I cannot figure what happened to the photos. I will follow this post closely.
David
 
Rennie Heuer said:
:huh: :dunno:

It would seem I am alone in this.:crash:
Click to expand...
I'm not using iCloud for my photos (because I don't want to fill my iCloud space with the tens of thousands of photos I have on my PC) so I've not run into the particular problem you've described, but after many years of trying to get iTunes and iCloud to cooperate consistently with Windows computers, I've come to the conclusion that Apple makes things as difficult as possible for PC users who want to also use Apple products. Things work great, and then they don't, even when I've made no changes to anything. Sometimes the calendars on my iPhone and PC sync, sometimes they don't. Currently if I enter an event or appointment on my phone, it shows up in Outlook on my PC. But if I enter it on my PC, it never shows up on my phone. A year or so ago, it was the opposite. Music and iTunes is just as inconsistent. Playlists disappear, I find multiple duplicates of songs listed, songs I've bought and paid for years ago on iTunes are now somehow missing unless my phone has WiFi or cell coverage, etc. It's truly a dog's breakfast.
 
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Guess i’ve had the problem and didn’t realize it was a problem. Photos have not sinc’d to my PC’s icloud photos file for a couple of years. When I need one from the cloud I just download it to the desired folder. They are all available on my iphone too.
 
Rennie Heuer said:
:huh: :dunno:

It would seem I am alone in this.:crash:
Click to expand...
Not at all. I just don't use outside services for my backups. I have a couple of inexpensive USB terabyte drives that I sync to using Allway Sync or Good Sync or whatever. I keep one drive in the house and one in the shop so I have storage location diversity. To be specifically nerdy . . . I have mirrored SSD drives in the office PC so I automatically get a local backup, I have one external 1TB USB drive on that system as well that I back up to weekly so I have an external backup, then I have the pair of 1TB USB drives previously mentioned that I back up to as described. It sounds like a lot but a couple of mouse clicks and the operation runs in the background. Despite 20 years of photos, scanned documents, the usual household stuff, and a copy of hundreds of CD's I only use about 60% of a terabyte.
 
Not feeling so lonely now. :)

It is frustrating. A little less convenient, but a solid work around, is to open iCloud in my browser and click on photos. Everything is there and can be easily accessed it just cant be opened and edited with the same ease - if I understand it correctly, I either do the editing first on my phone or iPad, or it has to be downloaded to my PC before I can edit it.

Regarding calendar and contacts - I used to fight the outlook battle and gave up. I now use Google for those functions. I use calendar, contacts, and Keep the most.
 
So this is what I'm seeing on mine. I did have to go into the cloud settings and tell it to download the HDR and other type (can't recall, but there are two that are turned off). I get the listing of images, some thumbnails aren't loading if I show those, but also they stay in the cloud until I open the full image, then they download (see Status column icon).
Screenshot 2024-08-27 at 9.50.04 AM.png

So after some digging, I saw an option on the files to right click and there is a context menu option to "Always keep on this device".Screenshot 2024-08-27 at 9.55.16 AM.png

Those items downloaded and have a dark green checkmark now.
Screenshot 2024-08-27 at 9.55.53 AM.png

There is also that option on the folder, which then applies to all items in the folder.
Screenshot 2024-08-27 at 9.56.49 AM.png

That said, I'm still testing to see if new items automatically get that marked, but be prepared to eat up some of your download allotment and/or bandwidth (make sure your wife isn't on a conference call DAMHIKT). ;)
 
I had to turn it off back off, realized it was 89 GB of download, will kick it off again another evening after 11PM since starlink doesn't count 11pm to 7am for allotted usage.
 
So far since setting it to "Always keep on this device" at the folder level, new pics have been syncing and saving the full file to the pc. Typical windows file browser, takes a while to index and some images don't have thumbnails still.
 
Darren Wright said:
@Rennie Heuer Any luck on getting sync to work?

I'm still testing, but noticed I have some files that show they are ready to sync, but one has been on there for well over 12 hours still showing it's ready to sync, there were a couple of others that synced when I pre-viewed them in the photo browser. I'll have to look into how to force a sync.
View attachment 131002

Explanation of the sync icons: https://support.apple.com/guide/icloud-windows/view-download-and-sharing-status-icw9b88b74a9/icloud
Click to expand...
No luck so far. Been using the browser to access iCloud. I hesitate to use the method you described, downloading everything, as I usually just want to see what is in the cloud and download only what I need. Normally I would see it in the cloud and right click - open to pull it into the MS photo edit. There I could crop, edit, etc. then save it back to the cloud for future access. The right click, or double click, is what is not working (just stays at 0% for a couple of minutes before giving up). Additionally, although I can see recent photos on both my iPhone and iPad (indicating they are syncing with the cloud) they do not appear in my PC's "iCloud Pictures" folder as they always had. I'll have some time tomorrow to mess with it some more.
 
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