What if Missing videos after Enabling iCloud Photo Library?

Enabling iCloud Photo Library can be a great way to keep your photos and videos synced across your devices. However, some users have reported issues with missing videos after turning on iCloud Photo Library. Here is a comprehensive guide covering potential causes, solutions, tips, and frequently asked questions about dealing with missing videos to help you get your media library back in order.

Introduction to Potential Issues with Videos and iCloud Photo Library

When you enable iCloud Photo Library, your device begins uploading your images and videos to iCloud so they can by synced to your other devices. This allows you to access your entire media library seamlessly across iPhone, iPad, Mac, and more.

However, issues can sometimes occur in this process resulting in missing videos after enabling iCloud Photo Library. Some potential causes include:

• Uploads failing or getting interrupted
• Sync conflicts between devices
• Media corruption or errors
• Lack of sufficient iCloud storage space

If you have run into this problem, don't worry - in most cases it is possible to restore missing videos or get iCloud Photo Library working properly again.

How to Recover Missing Videos After Enabling iCloud Photo Library

If you find that videos are missing after turning on iCloud Photo Library, here are the main troubleshooting tips to try:

Check Recently Deleted Folder

If a video gets accidentally or improperly deleted, the first place to check is iPhone or iPad's Recently Deleted folder within the Photos app. This holds deleted media for up to 40 days before permanent removal.

Browse through this folder and see if your missing videos ended up there. If so, you can restore them to your Camera Roll. This should also restore them properly to iCloud Photo Library.

Re-Upload From Source Device

If the videos are still present on the original device they were taken or saved on, you can try re-uploading to iCloud:

• Open the Photos app on this device
• Select the missing videos
• Tap the Share icon
• Choose "Copy iCloud Link"
• Then go to your other device that is missing videos
• Tap the iCloud link to download them again

This manually re-triggers the upload and sync process which may resolve missing video issues.

Double Check Storage Limits

One underlying issue that impacts missing media is running out of allotted iCloud storage capacity. Every Apple ID gets 5GB free, but with videos this space can quickly get used up.

Carefully check your iCloud storage usage under iPhone Settings > [your name] > iCloud > Manage Storage. If you are full or close to full, you will need to upgrade your iCloud storage plan to the next tier for proper sync to continue.

Toggle iCloud Photo Library Off and On

Sometimes simply turning iCloud Photo Library off and back on again can help realign things and restore missing videos.

To do this:

• Go to Settings > [your name] > iCloud > Photos
• Toggle the switch off momentarily
• Then open Photos, give it a minute to update
• Return to Settings to turn iCloud Photo Library back on

Allow some time for your media to fully sync back up to iCloud which should restore any missing videos.

Tips to Prevent Issues with Missing Videos in the Future

Once you have your missing videos restored, follow these tips to avoid further issues going forward:

• Maintain adequate iCloud storage capacity
• Use WiFi instead of cellular to improve upload reliability
• Manually back up videos periodicall onto a computer or external disk
• Enable iCloud Download & Keep Originals to store copies of media on your devices
• Avoid editing or deleting videos on multiple devices simultaneously

Quick Tip to ensure your videos never go missing

Videos are precious memories and all of us never want to ever lose them to hard disk crashes or missing drives. PicBackMan is the easiest and simplest way to keep your videos safely backed up in one or more online accounts. Simply Download PicBackMan (it's free!), register your account, connect to your online store and tell PicBackMan where your videos are - PicBackMan does the rest, automatically. It bulk uploads all videos and keeps looking for new ones and uploads those too. You don't have to ever touch it.

Frequently Asked Questions About Missing Videos After Enabling iCloud Photo Library

Here are answers to some common questions about dealing with missing videos due to iCloud Photo Library:

What causes videos to go missing with iCloud Photo Library?

Issues like failed or interrupted video uploads, iCloud storage limits, inconsistent syncing between devices, or errors in the media file itself can all lead to missing videos when using iCloud Photo Library.

Can you recover a video after deleting from Recently Deleted folder?

Unfortunately if you have waited too long and a video has been permanently deleted out of your Recently Deleted folder, it can no longer be recovered or synced back via iCloud Photo Library.

Do videos count towards my iCloud storage?

Yes, any photos or videos you store in iCloud Photo Library count against your available iCloud capacity. Video files are typically much larger than images, using more of your allotment.

Can turning iCloud Photo Library on delete existing videos?

It is very unlikely that merely enabling iCloud Photo Library would suddenly cause videos to be deleted without warning. But issues syncing a large amount of new media up to iCloud could result in conflicts that make videos appear temporarily missing.

How long should it take for videos to upload to iCloud?

The time will vary considerably based on the size of videos and your upload bandwidth, but most videos should finish uploading within several hours at most. If videos have been "uploading" for more than a day without progress there may be an issue.

In Conclusion

Having photos or videos go missing when you turn on iCloud Photo Library can certainly be annoying. Hopefully with the troubleshooting tips in this guide you can get to the bottom of what is causing videos to disappear and restore your complete media collection. Don't hesitate to reach out to Apple support as well if you exhaust all options. Just be patient and systematic in working through potential solutions and your videos should once again be seamlessly available across all your devices.