How to fix sync issues with Apple Photos on macOS

  1. Notice that a selection of photos on one Mac are not syncing to the rest of your devices.
  2. Restart Photos.
  3. That didn’t work.
  4. Restart the Mac.
  5. Nope.
  6. Open Activity Monitor and kill all processes with the word “photo”.
  7. Hmm. No change.
  8. Kill “bird”. You’re not sure what it does, but the internet says it’s part of the problem.
  9. Nothing.
  10. Delete the Syndication.photoslibrary deep in ~/Library/Photos.
  11. Wait and be patient. Maybe days?
  12. Ok, turn off iCloud in Photos preferences. Get nervous because that sounds dangerous. Wait, wasn’t all of this kinda risky?
  13. Turn on iCloud in Photos preferences. Wait while you waste bandwidth and time.
  14. The photos are syncing. Well some of them. Not ones that are edited. For some reason. 
  15. Wait, again. 
  16. Those dozen or so photos are still not syncing.
  17. Rotate those few images to see if that helps.
  18. It says it’s syncing! Yay
  19. It does not sync all of them.
  20. Quit Photos and then back to Activity Monitor again. Kill all process with the word “photo”.
  21. Restart Photos. Wait.
  22. Nothing at all.
  23. Repair the library.
  24. That was not it. Wait more than 24 hours.
  25. Create an album with photos that won’t sync.
  26. Share that album.
  27. That almost works, except for any photos from the recent import that were edited. 
  28. So then you turn off (and on again) iCloud in Photos preferences. 
  29. Wait two days and it’s all fixed. ಠ_ಠ