Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Apple's 'My Photo Stream' Service Shutting Down in July 2023

MacRumors

MacRumors

macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
67,488
37,767


Apple's "My Photo Stream" service is set to shut down on July 26, 2023, which means customers who are still using that feature will need to transition to using iCloud Photos prior to that date.

icloud-photos.jpg

My Photo Stream is a free service that uploads the last 30 days of images (up to 1,000) to iCloud, making them accessible on the iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, and PC. It predates iCloud Photos and has largely been replaced by the iCloud Photos service at this point.

Going forward, Apple plans to have all customers use iCloud Photos instead of My Photo Stream. New photo uploads to My Photo Stream will stop on June 26, 2023, and images will remain in iCloud as usual for 30 days until the shutdown point.

Because all of the images in My Photo Stream are stored in their original format on at least one Apple device, there isn't a danger of photos being lost as part of the shutdown process. Apple recommends that users who want to have their images on a particular device save them to the Photo Library on that device prior to July 26.

macos-mojave-photos-my-photo-stream.jpg

Images in My Photo Stream can be saved to the Photos app on the iPhone by opening up Photos, going to the My Photo Stream album, selecting individual photos, and using the Share button to save them to the Library. The process is the same on the Mac, but you will need to drag images from My Photo Stream to the Library.

Apple suggests that iPhone, iPad, and Mac users turn on iCloud Photos to view their photos and videos across their devices. iCloud Photos is available on iPhones and iPads running iOS 8.3 or later and Macs running OS X Yosemite or later.

Article Link: Apple's 'My Photo Stream' Service Shutting Down in July 2023
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2023/05/26/my-photo-stream-july-2023-shutdown/
  • Angry
  • Sad
  • Like
Reactions: Pinkyyy 💜🍎, ChipsAndIceCream, iPhilPHX and 6 others
This was a cool feature before iCloud Photo Library came along; I loved seeing all my photos on my Mac automatically without having to transfer them.

However, iCloud Photo Library really does make the feature a bit redundant. The only issue I can see is some very old devices losing access to the latest photos you've taken.
 
  • Like
  • Disagree
Reactions: PhoenixDown, BigMcGuire, CarlJ and 29 others
dannyyankou said:
Photo Stream doesn't count against iCloud storage. It's obvious why apple is doing this.
Click to expand...
?
This makes no sense.

It's obvious that it's a useless feature since it was developed before the entire photo library was moved to the cloud, not because it doesn't count against iCloud storage. Shared photo albums doesn't count against iCloud storage so you're saying Apple is going to axe that too?
 
  • Disagree
  • Like
Reactions: beginnersview, avalon68, ccsicecoke and 9 others
I always loved Photo Stream, so I don't know that I ever completely set up iCloud Photos. My phone is apparently not synced to iCloud Photos. When I go to turn that on, it says that hundreds of photos will be deleted. I'm assuming that means just deleted from my phone, correct? Every photo I've taken is in my Photos library on my computer, but definitely not in the cloud because I do not have that turn on on my computer. Do I need to turn that on first, have all that uploaded to the cloud and set it up on my phone/devices?
 
  • Like
Reactions: beginnersview, WhiteHawk and Love-hate 🍏 relationship
Although I have iCloud Photos enabled on some devices, I like the 'My Photo Stream' feature. It's quite nice but may also just a stop gap solution? Looking at the service requirement, it could be launched back in 2011 when photos size were much lower.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Mihailo88
ibrewster said:
It might have been useless to some people, but I personally liked the fact that when I took a photo on my phone, it showed up on my computer - WITHOUT having to pay for the privilege of having all 18,000 photos in my library stored in the cloud.
Click to expand...

This is me. I was confused by it at first, but loved being able to look at my pictures on an iPad without having to transfer it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: reocchi, chazcron, avalon68 and 5 others
UGH. :mad:

I use photo stream all the time. I do not use iCloud Photos and don’t want to, but photo stream made it easy to show someone a picture on my iPad that I had recently taken on my phone without the need to have my entire flipping library synced.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
  • Love
Reactions: Gimmi, reocchi, beginnersview and 47 others
tripsync said:
?
This makes no sense.

It's obvious that it's a useless feature since it was developed before the entire photo library was moved to the cloud, not because it doesn't count against iCloud storage. Shared photo albums doesn't count against iCloud storage so you're saying Apple is going to axe that too?
Click to expand...
In the announcement, Apple says "Moving forward, iCloud Photos is the best way to keep the photos and videos you take up to date across all your devices and safely stored in iCloud. "

And then when you click on the iCloud Photos link in the support document, it says this-

"If you need more iCloud storage
When you sign up for iCloud, you automatically get 5GB of free storage. If you need more space, and access to premium features, you can upgrade to iCloud+."

I mean come on, they want people to buy more storage.
 
  • Like
  • Disagree
  • Angry
Reactions: BigMcGuire, beginnersview, avalon68 and 34 others
TheYayAreaLiving 🎗️ said:
I really hope this is a sign more iCloud storage is coming soon. In 2023, 2TB is not enough.

View attachment 2208076
Click to expand...

God I hope so. But I’m sure it’ll happen over someone’s dead body.

It seems like all this version of Apple cares about is how to make the most money, not how to improve the user experience (which more often than not would make money too).
 
  • Like
Reactions: Tim Apple’s Glasses, AlexJaye, libertysat and 12 others
dannyyankou said:
In the announcement, Apple says "Moving forward, iCloud Photos is the best way to keep the photos and videos you take up to date across all your devices and safely stored in iCloud. "

And then when you click on the iCloud Photos link in the support document, it says this-

"If you need more iCloud storage
When you sign up for iCloud, you automatically get 5GB of free storage. If you need more space, and access to premium features, you can upgrade to iCloud+."

I mean come on, they want people to buy more storage.
Click to expand...
5 GB of free storage in 2023 is not enough. It should be at least 15 GB, like Google Drive.
 
  • Like
Reactions: TheMountainLife, NetMage, Yrmmont and 15 others
zorinlynx said:
This was a cool feature before iCloud Photo Library came along; I loved seeing all my photos on my Mac automatically without having to transfer them.

However, iCloud Photo Library really does make the feature a bit redundant. The only issue I can see is some very old devices losing access to the latest photos you've taken.
Click to expand...
I’m not paying for the kinda storage needed for icloud Photos. I still use the stream and have for years. It’s a nice redundancy without the worry of having photos all in the cloud and not syncing right or paying more
 
  • Like
Reactions: reocchi, avalon68, j-beda and 7 others
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back