I noticed that my iPhone photos are not syncing with iCloud, but my iPad photos sync with iCloud. So I went to my settings for Photos on my iPhone, and I turned on "iCloud Photos." A message popped up, saying, "1,329 photos will be removed." I have a total of 1,505 photos and videos on my iPhone, so this message seems like its saying most of my pictures and videos will be deleted off my device if I clicked to "Remove Photos." I didn't want to lose my photos on my iPhone, so I pressed "cancel." You would think Apple would make this simple and automatic, but instead, I had to spend time trying to figure out how to save my photos and sync my iPhone with iCloud.
When I mention photos or pictures in this article, I'm speaking of both photos and videos. To save my photos on my iPhone, I opened the "Photos" app on my Macbook Pro, and I then connected my iPhone to the MacBook Pro. I then imported my iPhone photos to the Photos app on the Mac. Now the images should be safe when I turn on the "iCloud Photos" button in settings on my iPhone. The next step is to go back to your device, and turn on "iCloud Photos" so that your device syncs with iCloud.
After clicking "Remove Photos," I figured I would have 1,329 fewer photos on my iPhone immediately, but nothing changed. I assumed that the warning meant it would delete my photos right away. I still had 1,505 photos showing on my iPhone. So I decided to wait overnight to see if my photos would sync with iCloud. When I woke up, I had 8,186 photos showing on my iPhone. I reviewed my iPhone photos to see if I was missing any, and it seems like everything worked out fine, and I didn't lose any photos. Please comment below if you have any other suggestions on how to handle this error message or you want to post your experience.
For those of you wondering how to sync photos with iCloud, go to your device Settings > Photos. You will see a button called "iCloud Photos." Turning this on will automatically upload and store your photos and videos in iCloud. Remember to import your photos first to your Photo App on your Mac before trying this.
iCloud syncing is a great feature to have since all your photos will be available on all your devices, allowing you to either share them or use them for work without transferring photos from one device to another. The only issue with this method is, if I import a photo into the Photo app on my Mac, it doesn't transfer right away to iCloud. I waited 15 minutes, and the image I took still didn't sync yet. I waited another 30 minutes, and my Mac still didn't sync with iCloud. So the syncing between the Mac and iCloud isn't instant. If you're experiencing something different, please comment below. On the other hand, If you take a photo on a device (iPhone or iPad), it transfers in less than a minute to iCloud and other devices (iPhone, iPad).
It is interesting to note that when I tried researching this issue, I could only find online complaints about "Photos Synced from iTunes will be Removed." The message I received was, "Photos Synced from Finder will be Removed." I'm not sure why it mentions "Finder" in my warning message, but it seems the warning messages could be related. I've done most of my syncing in the past with iTunes, so I'm not sure why the warning message says "Finder" rather than "iTunes." It could be that I occasionally imported images to Adobe Lightroom, but I'm not sure.