There are ongoing issues apparently affecting the iCloud for Windows app, particularly in regards to photo and video storage. According to a number of online complaints from users, iCloud for Windows is corrupting certain videos. There are also reports of a more worrying problem: photos from strangers popping up in people’s iCloud Photo library.
Major problems in iCloud for Windows?
MacRumors rounded up some of these complaints via complaints posted to their forums. According to an affected user, videos taken with the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro models aren’t being properly synced with iCloud for Windows. When certain videos are recorded and the synced with iCloud for Windows, they then turn “black with scan lines, rendering the videos unwatchable.”
While that problem is bad enough, some other users say they are seeing photos and even videos they do not recognize in their photo libraries. The speculation here is that these photos or videos could be from other people’s iCloud libraries, though nothing has been confirmed yet.
Top comment by Gordon Bonenfant
I have the basic iCloud backup. I use Google apps from years on Android and have continued use of Google Photos, Drive, and larger storage Google One that work flawlessly.
In response to an earlier comment arguing not to use cloud backup… that’s crazy. I lived in a city that was severely impacted by a wildfire… many lost all their family, baby photos… many wishing they had digitized older photos or made backups of mobile collections in cloud based storage…. Even losing a phone could lead to devastating photo loss & all without cloud backups.
One affected user explained the problem:
iCloud for Windows is corrupting videos recorded from an iPhone 14 pro max resulting in black videos with scan lines. On rare occasions, it is inserting stills into videos from unknown sources, possibly other’s iCloud accounts. I’ve been shown photos of other people’s families I’ve never seen in my life, soccer games, and other random photos. Obviously, this is extremely concerning and does not exactly make me feel safe using iCloud.
These problems appear to be affecting the dedicated iCloud for Windows app itself, not the recently-launched iCloud Photos integration in Windows 11.
More specific information about these problems remains unclear at this time. The culprit seems to be the handoff of certain file types between the iPhone and iCloud rendering on Windows. The problem certainly appears to be a server-side issue on Apple’s side, rather than something on Microsoft’s side.
Have you experienced any problems with photos and videos appearing via the iCloud for Windows? Let us know in the comments. We’ll be sure to update this story as we learn more and if a fix emerges.
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