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Apple's 'My Photo Stream' Service Shutting Down in July 2023
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I guess I’m the rare weirdo who uses iCloud for everything. I enjoy that when ever I wipe out a Mac or get a new one, I log in to iCloud and EVERYTHING pulls down in minutes. (Proxies at least) I don’t have to worry about Time Machine drives or backing up my stuff. Every user file in my Mac sits safely and happily in the cloud at the ready. Hassle free.
iCloud Photos would work as a free alternative provided you transfer photos out of your iCPL to stay within the 5GB limit.
You have to move them out of Photostream anyway.
Also think Photostream pics are not full res.
So actually iCloud Photos would be a free improvement if kept below 5GB
* Edited: May 28, 2023 01:57PM BST
You have to move them out of Photostream anyway.
Also think Photostream pics are not full res.
So actually iCloud Photos would be a free improvement if kept below 5GB
* Edited: May 28, 2023 01:57PM BST
I guess the good news is this move forced me to look at alternatives.
Turns out, Amazon Prime comes with free unlimited full res cloud storage for photos, and automatic uploads from my iOS devices……so that achieves a similar function for free since we already have Prime for other reasons.
So far it seems like I can rely on the Prime Photos app to have uploaded everything each day to the cloud, and I can see it / get it from any other connected device.
It isn't QUITE like Photostream in that the photos don't magically download to my other devices, from what I can see, but as long as I have an internet connection, it feels ALMOST as fast to access the photos from other devices.
Turns out, Amazon Prime comes with free unlimited full res cloud storage for photos, and automatic uploads from my iOS devices……so that achieves a similar function for free since we already have Prime for other reasons.
So far it seems like I can rely on the Prime Photos app to have uploaded everything each day to the cloud, and I can see it / get it from any other connected device.
It isn't QUITE like Photostream in that the photos don't magically download to my other devices, from what I can see, but as long as I have an internet connection, it feels ALMOST as fast to access the photos from other devices.
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I’m not smart, and i don’t understand how this solves it. The main library on the Mac is what gets synced to iCloud. And that is the one that is huge. That page doesn’t indicate any way to just limit it to what is on the phone.
But if I could limit it to what is on my iPhone, that would be pretty cool!
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It’s quite obvious that you and many others carping about this have no idea what Photo Streaming is/was. Read the description. Photo streaming uploads your photos to a server for access from all your devices. Those photos are then DELETED from the server after 30 days. If you want to keep them on all devices you need to download them before they are deleted or they disappear after 30 days. So only your most recent photos are on the server. Photo stream was never a permanent online storage solution.
And the option doesn’t even appear anymore on the latest versions of the Photos app, Apple TV for example. So yeah, a very few people use it these days. This is yet another mountain being made out of a molehill.
Apple also discontinues accounts. iCloud accounts dont stay active that long if not accessed. Not sure I remember how long but short enough we needed to make accommodations for one family member.
Photo stream wasn't permanent in the sense that one's photos in the photo stream would stay around forever....but it was permanent in the sense that Apple had to allocate server space perpetually, without getting paid for it, so doing away with it saves them money / probably makes them money when some people move to paid iCloud support.
That sounds like a cool system, except for those of us with 10+ TB of data on our systems!
In short, you create a new library and designate that one as the system (main) library.
Your big one is only local. Your little one is synced from the phone. You can option click to select which one you want to open on your mac. I presume you would keep doing whatever you are doing to get photos from phone to big library, but you could also export them from your icloud/system one and import them to your big library instead, I suppose (I don't do that)
Okay, that makes sense. I'll need to look at what that actually means in practice.... I mean, which precise steps I follow.
And you raise a good point: I need to think through my strategy for moving from the small iCloud main library to my real big complete library. (This is exacerbated by the fact that I use a "reference" library ie I don't import my photos into Photos, but have them in traditional folders and PHOTOS just references those.)
Here is the source right from Apple's website. They still say you can get 4TB (near the bottom of the page)
"If your family needs additional iCloud storage, the family member who purchased Apple One can buy more iCloud storage. With both Apple One and an iCloud+ plan, your family can share up to 4TB of total iCloud storage.":
What happens to your iCloud storage when you sign up for Apple One - Apple Support
Apple One is designed to give you the best value for your Apple services. If you already pay for an iCloud+ plan, learn what happens when you sign up for Apple One.
Yup, I never set up iCloud photos because I don't want every photo of mine in the cloud, thank you very much. Anyone who thinks the cloud is private is naive. And... it will now cost money, as the cloud space will be expensive.
Yet another example of taking something that works, is simple, free, and not too intrusive, and making it not.
1. Payment now required for iCloud space as your entire library will hardly fit within the free allotment.
2. All your photos are now fodder in the cloud which isn't has secure as you would like to believe. If 'they' want to see them, 'they' will.
3. This is beyond your iPhone photos, all photos taken with any camera and uploaded to iPhoto are now going to be in iCloud. See #2.
4. Don't forget all scanned images will also be included. Take pictures of secure documents? They're not so secure anymore. Before, they would be exposed for 30 days (except for archives), not they are exposed until deleted or moved out of iPhotos.
I will be moving to a 3rd party solution.
1. Payment now required for iCloud space as your entire library will hardly fit within the free allotment.
2. All your photos are now fodder in the cloud which isn't has secure as you would like to believe. If 'they' want to see them, 'they' will.
3. This is beyond your iPhone photos, all photos taken with any camera and uploaded to iPhoto are now going to be in iCloud. See #2.
4. Don't forget all scanned images will also be included. Take pictures of secure documents? They're not so secure anymore. Before, they would be exposed for 30 days (except for archives), not they are exposed until deleted or moved out of iPhotos.
I will be moving to a 3rd party solution.
Unlikely. Shared albums have limited resolution (videos as 720p; photos resized to 2048 on the long edge). So it’s only truly useful for “Sharing” photos with others, not for keeping your originals safe.
It would cost you $1 a month to store all of it in iCloud Photo Library.
$1 / month for 50 Gb is not expensive.
People should stop expecting anything for free.
Oh for sure it doesn’t work for a lot of folks. I do hope Apple offers larger tiers soon.
I have 4TB iCloud storage. I bought Apple One Premier which comes with 2TB of storage then added the 2TB option in iCloud for another 2TB for $9.99.
4TB still isn't enough. I'm already at 3TB with less than TB left in free space.
Buy Apple One Premier that comes with 2TB of storage space. Then buy iCloud+ 2TB of extra space.
TheYayAreaLiving 🎗️
Suspended
@Coleman2010 How are you paying $9.99? I thought the additional 2TB option includes other services. Which is $32.95 a month now.
A couple of months ago it used to be $29.99. Come on Apple. Seriously! They raised the prices on that too. Why did I even bothered checking ugh! 😞😖
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Agreed, but that will probably never happen. It should also be possible to back up a Mac on iCloud. Right now, it's iOS and iPadOS only.
When you wipe out a Mac or get a new one, you pulls down everything in minute? Do you mean your documents and desktop? Because it's currently not possible to backup up a whole Mac system using iCloud. I wish that would be possible, like on iOS and iPadOS.
I seem to recall they shut it down several months ago, but forgot to tell anyone and so had to bring it back.
It’s nice to have photos automatically sync between my iPhone and iPad, because I take photos using the phone but prefer to look at them on the bigger screen of the iPad. I don’t use My Photo Stream on the desktop because when I initially tried it, it literally copied the photos into my library, unlike shared albums that keep them in the cloud. I take a ton of photos and throw out most of them when I import to the desktop once a week and can choose the best. My Photo Stream interfered with that process. As I recall, it didn’t even let me import the photos because it thought I already had them via My Photo Stream, but the ones I wanted to import from the phone were much higher quality than the ones on My Photo Stream.
It would be if the iPhone/iPad cameras could automatically upload new photos to a Shared Album, and the album would automatically delete them several weeks later.
Like others, I have far too many photos to use iCloud Photos.
It’s nice to have photos automatically sync between my iPhone and iPad, because I take photos using the phone but prefer to look at them on the bigger screen of the iPad. I don’t use My Photo Stream on the desktop because when I initially tried it, it literally copied the photos into my library, unlike shared albums that keep them in the cloud. I take a ton of photos and throw out most of them when I import to the desktop once a week and can choose the best. My Photo Stream interfered with that process. As I recall, it didn’t even let me import the photos because it thought I already had them via My Photo Stream, but the ones I wanted to import from the phone were much higher quality than the ones on My Photo Stream.
It would be if the iPhone/iPad cameras could automatically upload new photos to a Shared Album, and the album would automatically delete them several weeks later.
Like others, I have far too many photos to use iCloud Photos.