iCloud photo library improvements

[crashoverride77]

Fixed

1) bug where images downloaded from iCloud.com where not full size but rather compressed images half the size.
I tried to downloading an image today and it was full size and resolution. Its nice they fixed this already.
UPDATED: Apparently still not working correctly for everyone.

Unclear/Wishlist

1) Being able to upload pictures through iCloud.com. UPDATES: seems like Apple is working on this already https://www.macrumors.com/2014/11/06/apple-adds-uploading-to-icloud-beta-site/

2) Feature so that we can delete pictures of our phone without them being deleted of IPL, preferably directly through settings-general-usage.
The only way to do this at the moment is by turning off IPL in settings, after all pictures are uploaded, and than going into camera roll to manually delete all your pictures. This is a bit of a hassle if you want to manually clear space.

3) Better explain how the "optimised" setting works.
Does it ignore recent pictures taken?
When does it actually clear space?
Why does my iPad use a lot of space even tho new pictures were taken from an iPhone?
Does it do that automatically because they were pictures that where taken recently?


I quite like IPL so far, has been working pretty well for me apart from the fact that I don't understand how and when "optimised" will work. What do you guys think?

 

[Dino F]

I know one thing : there is a bug whereby IPL on the web (www.icloud.com) shows images that are NOT on my iPhone 6 OR iPad 2? I have even submitted this bug and the below but to Apple.

My iPhone and iPad are perfectly synced - the same images appear on both devices HOWEVER, going online to iCloud, shows images that are NOT on either of my devices. In addition, deleting images off icloud.com does not permanently delete them - if I delete a bunch of photos and then sign out, when I next sign in, even a few seconds later, ALL the previously deleted photos have returned. WTF is all that about?

Its a complete shambles - its like the website just keeps throwing up the same static image of the same photos - NO MATTER HOW MANY TIMES I DELETE THEM.

IMHO, IPL has a LONG way to go before all the bugs are fixed.

 

[sdilley14]

Fixed

1) bug where images downloaded from iCloud.com where not full size but rather compressed images half the size.
I tried to downloading an image today and it was full size and resolution. Its nice they fixed this already.

Is it officially documented somewhere that this was fixed? I just created a thread today describing this very prioblem. I hadn't run into this until yesterday. I'm still having problems loading full-res images from ICPL.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1814304/

 

[bgro]

Fixed

1) bug where images downloaded from iCloud.com where not full size but rather compressed images half the size.
I tried to downloading an image today and it was full size and resolution. Its nice they fixed this already.

Unclear/Wishlist

1) Being able to upload pictures through iCloud.com.

2) Feature so that we can delete pictures of our phone without them being deleted of IPL, preferably directly through settings-general-usage.
The only way to do this at the moment is by turning off IPL in settings, after all pictures are uploaded, and than going into camera roll to manually delete all your pictures. This is a bit of a hassle if you want to manually clear space.

3) Better explain how the "optimised" setting works.
Does it ignore recent pictures taken?
When does it actually clear space?
Why does my iPad use a lot of space even tho new pictures were taken from an iPhone?
Does it do that automatically because they were pictures that where taken recently?


I quite like IPL so far, has been working pretty well for me apart from the fact that I don't understand how and when "optimised" will work. What do you guys think?

This is the part I'm curious about..i have the "optimized" setting on my phone yet it seems that my pics are taking up a TON of space. Not sure I understand how it's supposed to work. In my mind I thought all the pics would live in the cloud and the photo library would just be a "window" into the cloud and not take up any space. Doesn't seem like that's the intent..

 

[crashoverride77]

Is it officially documented somewhere that this was fixed? I just created a thread today describing this very prioblem. I hadn't run into this until yesterday. I'm still having problems loading full-res images from ICPL.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1814304/

hey,
for me this has been fixed. Not sure when exactly they did it but I tried to download images today and they were the original full size versions.
If you tried yesterday, try again today and see what happens.

 

[sdilley14]

Mine also seems to be a little backwards, now that I just checked it. I went into the iCloud settings, manage storage, ICPL, and it is saying that I have 438 photos stored in iCloud, taking up 85.5 MB. While on my local device storage I have the same number of photos taking up 225MB (181MB photo library, 43.3MB Shared Photo Stream). If the higher res photos are being stored in the cloud I would think these numbers would be reversed?

----------

hey,
for me this has been fixed. Not sure when exactly they did it but I tried to download images today and they were the original full size versions.
If you tried yesterday, try again today and see what happens.

Just tried, still downloading compressed/low-res images on about half the images I try. I'll keep messing with it and checking. I'm sure it'll get ironed out eventually.

 

[crashoverride77]

This is the part I'm curious about..i have the "optimized" setting on my phone yet it seems that my pics are taking up a TON of space. Not sure I understand how it's supposed to work. In my mind I thought all the pics would live in the cloud and the photo library would just be a "window" into the cloud and not take up any space. Doesn't seem like that's the intent..

yeah I hope we get an explanation or something since nobody knows how it works. I think it has something do with recent pictures taken or uploaded but Im totally guessing here.
I do like the idea of having thumbnails instead of just a link to iCloud, so we can see the pictures even without internet. I just wonder, like you and everyone else how optimisation works because it clearly doesn't how everyone expects it to.
What makes it even more annoying, see my point number 2, is the hassle to delete pictures if you wanna clear space manually and don't want to wait for optimisation to do its thing.

 

[crashoverride77]

Mine also seems to be a little backwards, now that I just checked it. I went into the iCloud settings, manage storage, ICPL, and it is saying that I have 438 photos stored in iCloud, taking up 85.5 MB. While on my local device storage I have the same number of photos taking up 225MB (181MB photo library, 43.3MB Shared Photo Stream). If the higher res photos are being stored in the cloud I would think these numbers would be reversed?

----------



Just tried, still downloading compressed/low-res images on about half the images I try. I'll keep messing with it and checking. I'm sure it'll get ironed out eventually.

Im sorry to hear that. I assumed that it was a problem for everyone and because it is working for me today that is was also fixed for everyone. I even just now tried with one of my very old pictures I uploaded and they still are full size.

Don't know what happened to your iCloud storage, maybe the photos haven't uploaded properly or are still doing it. Mine is 20MB less than the actual folder on my Mac I have as a backup so it seems to be fine for me. I just have the local storage problem like you mentioned.

 

[zorinlynx]

The biggest issue I have with iCloud photo library is that enabling it removes the ability to sync photos over from Aperture.

I have about 4000 photos synced over, going back many years. I love having these photos on my phone so I can share them with people once in a while.

Removing this ability is a complete deal-breaker for me when it comes to iCloud photo library. It sucks because it has some merit, but they're making you give up important functionality to use it. WTF, Apple.

 

[sdilley14]

Also don't confuse local storage OR photo stream storage since it is different to IPL. That usage you mentioned doesn't relate to your IPL. To check and see how much space your photos in IPL actually take go to settings-general-usage-icloud manage storage OR settings-icloud-storage. Its the same thing and will actually show you your real IPL usage.

Right. I went into Settings > iCloud > Storage > Manage Storage > Photos (with the IPL sub-heading), and it says "You have 438 photos stored in iCloud. Your photos are using 85.5 MB."

Then when I go to Settings > General > Usage > Manage Storage > Photos & Camera, it shows me as using 221 MB, 176 MB being used in the Photo Library and 44.2 MB being using in Shared Photo Stream (I was using Photo Stream as a means of cloud photo storage before IPL became available).

To me, if optimization is meant to store low-res photos locally and high-res photos in the cloud, these storage useage numbers should be switched around. Since they aren't, it makes me thing that the images being stored in the cloud are actually low-res copies and that's why they are downloading at low-res quality. And the excess storage being used locally is accounting for photos I've taken recently that are being stored at full-res and haven't been synced to iCloud yet. Just my theory.

EDIT: I just went to iCloud from my computer and accessed the IPL. I clicked on one of the images that I had been trying to load on my phone but was coming up low-res. When I open it in my web browser it is displaying a much smaller version than my original photo. Which leads me to believe that some (or maybe all) of my high-res photos that were stored in iCloud somehow got swapped with the low res-versions and that's why they're not displaying properly on either my phone or in my web broweser. Ughghgh.

 

[crashoverride77]

The biggest issue I have with iCloud photo library is that enabling it removes the ability to sync photos over from Aperture.

I have about 4000 photos synced over, going back many years. I love having these photos on my phone so I can share them with people once in a while.

Removing this ability is a complete deal-breaker for me when it comes to iCloud photo library. It sucks because it has some merit, but they're making you give up important functionality to use it. WTF, Apple.

I guess its because Aperture and iPhoto will be discontinued. Im not a Aperture users or even an advanced iPhoto user. Im quite a casual photo user, so I really like the idea of IPL and the new photos app on Macs and the sync it provides. Im sure some advanced users hate that certain features will get ditched or that old library management and syncing methods will not work anymore. I totally understand that even tho it doesn't really apply to me.

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Right. I went into Settings > iCloud > Storage > Manage Storage > Photos (with the IPL sub-heading), and it says "You have 438 photos stored in iCloud. Your photos are using 85.5 MB."

Then when I go to Settings > General > Usage > Manage Storage > Photos & Camera, it shows me as using 221 MB, 176 MB being used in the Photo Library and 44.2 MB being using in Shared Photo Stream (I was using Photo Stream as a means of cloud photo storage before IPL became available).

To me, if optimization is meant to store low-res photos locally and high-res photos in the cloud, these storage useage numbers should be switched around. Since they aren't, it makes me thing that the images being stored in the cloud are actually low-res copies and that's why they are downloading at low-res quality. And the excess storage being used locally is accounting for photos I've taken recently that are being stored at full-res and haven't been synced to iCloud yet. Just my theory.

EDIT: I just went to iCloud from my computer and accessed the IPL. I clicked on one of the images that I had been trying to load on my phone but was coming up low-res. When I open it in my web browser it is displaying a much smaller version than my original photo. Which leads me to believe that some (or maybe all) of my high-res photos that were stored in iCloud somehow got swapped with the low res-versions and that's why they're not displaying properly on either my phone or in my web broweser. Ughghgh.

I'm sorry I misread you comment initially thinking you went into the wrong setting. I updated my post in regards to that but you must have missed it and wrote your reply.
I don't know whats going on with your IPL usage, mine seems to work fine (see pic from other post).
My only real issue is that optimisation with the local storage is not working as you or I expect.
If you have a backup of your pictures somewhere and can reset the hole thing it might be worth a try. Redo the upload and see if it will fix the iCloud usage issue.
My iCloud.com downloads work now as expected and they are in full size. I also updated my initial post to reflect that it still seems to not work for everyone like yourself, which is a shame. Its still in Beta so we have to not expect it to be perfect already but I like were its heading.

 

[sdilley14]

Since everything is still working fine using Photo Stream as opposed to IPL I just disabled IPL for now, uploaded all of my recently taken photos to my Photo Stream, and I'm just going to use Photo Stream for now until IPL gets "fixed"/improved.

 

[bgro]

Right. I went into Settings > iCloud > Storage > Manage Storage > Photos (with the IPL sub-heading), and it says "You have 438 photos stored in iCloud. Your photos are using 85.5 MB."

Then when I go to Settings > General > Usage > Manage Storage > Photos & Camera, it shows me as using 221 MB, 176 MB being used in the Photo Library and 44.2 MB being using in Shared Photo Stream (I was using Photo Stream as a means of cloud photo storage before IPL became available).

To me, if optimization is meant to store low-res photos locally and high-res photos in the cloud, these storage useage numbers should be switched around. Since they aren't, it makes me thing that the images being stored in the cloud are actually low-res copies and that's why they are downloading at low-res quality. And the excess storage being used locally is accounting for photos I've taken recently that are being stored at full-res and haven't been synced to iCloud yet. Just my theory.

EDIT: I just went to iCloud from my computer and accessed the IPL. I clicked on one of the images that I had been trying to load on my phone but was coming up low-res. When I open it in my web browser it is displaying a much smaller version than my original photo. Which leads me to believe that some (or maybe all) of my high-res photos that were stored in iCloud somehow got swapped with the low res-versions and that's why they're not displaying properly on either my phone or in my web broweser. Ughghgh.

Geez this sounds like a mess. IPL seemed like the perfect solution for my photo storage needs but once again it seems like Apple is screweing this up somehow. They really suck at cloud related stuff (except for device backup imo which is top notch).

 

[sdilley14]

Geez this sounds like a mess. IPL seemed like the perfect solution for my photo storage needs but once again it seems like Apple is screweing this up somehow. They really suck at cloud related stuff (except for device backup imo which is top notch).

It was working beautifully for me up until yesterday. I *think* (or hope) that I'm in the minority that is having this type of trouble. Hopefully they'll get things ironed out soon with this. In the meantime, Photo Stream seems to be working just fine for me (since I don't have a huge photo library, only about 500 photos).

 

[crashoverride77]

Nice, Apple is clearly improving IPL.

https://www.macrumors.com/2014/11/06/apple-adds-uploading-to-icloud-beta-site/