Note: This is actually a cross-post from my post to Apple’s user support forum on the topic, a place I expect to now start contributing in lieu of /r/applehelp.

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This is kind of bordering more on an article than a question at this point. I’ve tried everything including long discussions with AppleCare. As far as I can tell, my system is performing as designed, and the performance remains unacceptable.

The basic problem: With a very large backlog of new files on the local device, the system is still never using more than about 10% of available bandwidth to upload files to iCloud, resulting in a perpetual and growing backlog.

Exacerbating factors: basically, the proportion in my case of upload volume to idle time online is way off from expected. Because I do a lot of photography during off-grid excursions, and only pursue wi-fi when explicitly needed, the system just can’t catch up. But here’s the real problem: when I DO connect to wi-fi, I cannot get the system to use the full speed to upload. Instead for some reason, I’ve experimentally arrived at a figure of only around 10% of available bandwidth that the system is willing to use. It seems to bump this significantly during power nap, but again, due to lacking documentation, I cannot figure out how to manually trigger this mode.

My theory: I think that Apple follows the 80-20 rule like most companies, in that it designs its systems to be optimal for 80% of the people 80% of the time, and just ignores the other 20% as unimportant to the business. 80% of people are not heavy photographers, but instead take a small handful of pictures most days and when they do take more, like a party or vacation, would likely get frustrated if the Photos app consumed too much bandwidth on uploads when they probably also want to reserve some bandwidth for social media uploads and the like. In other words, most people don’t care about the speed of uploads to iCloud nearly as much as they care about the performance of their Safari browser and other devices on the network like their streaming box. Therefore, to cater to this large majority of users, Apple likely designed the upload algorithm as a “background task” and imposed a “speed limit” on it to prevent it disrupting the user experience. Further experimental data supporting this is that, when measuring the bandwidth from the router, the Mac uploaded data at a significantly faster rate while asleep (“power nap”) than while awake and idle, even with no apps open besides Photos.

I am now frankly more troubled by secondary implications than by the original problem. I spoke with three Apple technicians none of whom could describe the rules of the algorithm to me. I asked, what should I do to expedite this upload? And nobody had any ideas. None at all, not even perhaps how to identify the un-uploaded files if I might want to just delete those files and start over, at least starting by matching the libraries of my devices. No useful information at all, because apparently even internally the mechanism involved is not documented.

There have been many posts on this topic and none have resulted in a meaningful answer. The best answers are usually just FAQ stuff. Leave it overnight. Check for obvious problems. Reboot. But ultimately, as to the question of “Why is the system only using a small fraction of my available bandwidth?” there has been no direct answer, not one, only some vague user-blaming excuses suggesting things like an individual system problem or user error, and declarations of “it worked for me.”

Indeed, I am confident from past experience that given enough time, it will eventually get uploaded. But in the past I’ve found that it takes so long – basically at least a solid week of adding no new photos and leaving it on wifi overnight – that the system just isn’t practically useful at all when on any kind of intermittent connection. Basically, iCloud Photo Library is explicitly designed NOT to be compatible with a routine of only occasional connectivity. Like most cloud services, it is designed under the assumption that the user will be connected to fast internet more often than not – and if not, the user is just in the 20% that the service simply isn’t designed for.

So if anyone can give me a helpful insight specifically into whether there is a reproducible method to get my Mac into the appropriate zen state to start utilizing the full bandwidth of my Starlink connection during the rare times when it is available, I’m all ears. Meanwhile though, I’m struggling to find any alternatives either, as all other cloud storage solutions seem to be designed around the same ideas – to conserve upload bandwidth and minimize upload speed rather than maximize it. So I am open and eager to hear any possible solutions or tech horoscopes or rain dances that might help me get updated.