IOS – How to force a Photo Stream sync on the iPhone

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The Settings page says that Photos will automatically by sent to Photo Stream when I am connected to Wi-Fi, however I've waited several minutes and don't see them in iPhoto. I believe they haven't been sent to iCloud yet. Is there any way to force them to be synced to iCloud from the iPhone?

Best Answer

Fastest solution (iPhone restart NOT needed!): I've found that if I open Photos on my iDevice after taking a photo, and then (after the spinning icon goes away) open Photos* on my Mac, the photo appears in my photo stream.

Notes:

This is way easier and faster than rebooting or resetting Wi-Fi.

It's also faster and more likely to work than just killing Photos Agent and restarting Photos.

(Further evidence showing WHY this works: When I open Photos on my iDevice, I see the spinning icon on my iDevice - IFF I've just taken a photo. If I access my photo stream on my Mac‡ without having opened Photos, the new photo is not there.)

*(or iPhoto if you haven't switched to Photos)

‡(such as by clicking Photo Stream under Media in the standard File..Open dialog box in recent versions of MacOS)

Note: Photo Stream only syncs the last 30 days of your photos.

2020 UPDATE: Recently, Photos was changed; when you open it you may need to take an additional step to cause the upload - but if so, you’ll see a prompt about it.

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