I'm actually trying, again, to go for an all Apple/iCloud experience. I've even upgraded to 200GB plan from 50GB.
Unfortunately, as I expected again, I'm having nothing but problems, and I think it's because I'm a Windows user.
I finally finished the initial upload after about a week. This is after logging out of iCloud, rebooting, and logging back into iCloud. So it's slow. I'm still trying to figure out how to get 32GB worth of video in iCloud, because doing it from Windows isn't working.
Because I'm on Windows, there's no way to sort order photos by date taken within an album.
On iOS, I learned you can create a "folder" and put albums in it. Unfortunately, it doesn't let you drag and drop existing albums into this folder. You have to create them again inside the folder, then add the photos from an existing album, then go back and delete the initial album. You figure it should work like making a folder full of apps, but, nope.
You can't select a key photo to represent an album as an option. You have to manually move the photo to be the first photo in an album to make it a "key" photo.
If I turn sign out of iCloud on my device for whatever reason, it begins to delete photos on my device instead of just leaving them there. When I sign back in, it starts the upload/download process all over again.
Furthermore with all this data being transferred, you can easily blow through your home data caps which for me is 1TB. The data is the photo being uploaded to the cloud, then downloaded to my iPad and laptop. Heaven forbid if I sign out of any of these devices.
Speaking of devices, since I'm on Windows, there's no "optimize" photos option for me. That means, I need to double check my backups before I delete photos from my SSD to save space.
Still not sure if these deletes items from iCloud Photo Library.
When I was having trouble syncing, I figured I use the website to upload. I figured it would work as flawless as Google Photos. Nope. Uploading from the website ignores EXIF data for dates making older photos appear as new photos with the date of the upload appearing as the date the photo was taken.
Also on the website, you can't select multiple photos to delete or create an album. It's a one at a time affair. You can't create folders or move albums into folders. The website is basically useless for organizing.
Since Apple insists on doing everything on my phone, scanning photos for "AI" like faces and such takes forever. And I have to have my phone plugged in and locked for it to do anything. With 25k photos, yikes. I understand Apple's take on privacy, but if my photos are already in iCloud, why can't they use their servers to do the work and just have it show up on my phone? There's got to be a better way for them to do this.
Sharing photos from iCloud with other people reduces the resolution to 2048px and videos to 720p. What a waste. Especially when I'm paying Apple for storage and they won't even share my photos with others at full resolution. This is ridiculous.
I use an app called Metapho to view EXIF data on certain photos. Stuff like, camera model, camera settings, etc. Sometimes I use it to change the date taken information if I see it upload incorrectly. This app flat out stopped working with this large of library.
I have a 256GB iPhone X, enabled full resolution photos to stay on my phone, but yet it takes forever to photos to show up in a photo picker when I'm using social media.
Unfortunately, as I expected again, I'm having nothing but problems, and I think it's because I'm a Windows user.
I finally finished the initial upload after about a week. This is after logging out of iCloud, rebooting, and logging back into iCloud. So it's slow. I'm still trying to figure out how to get 32GB worth of video in iCloud, because doing it from Windows isn't working.
Because I'm on Windows, there's no way to sort order photos by date taken within an album.
On iOS, I learned you can create a "folder" and put albums in it. Unfortunately, it doesn't let you drag and drop existing albums into this folder. You have to create them again inside the folder, then add the photos from an existing album, then go back and delete the initial album. You figure it should work like making a folder full of apps, but, nope.
You can't select a key photo to represent an album as an option. You have to manually move the photo to be the first photo in an album to make it a "key" photo.
If I turn sign out of iCloud on my device for whatever reason, it begins to delete photos on my device instead of just leaving them there. When I sign back in, it starts the upload/download process all over again.
Furthermore with all this data being transferred, you can easily blow through your home data caps which for me is 1TB. The data is the photo being uploaded to the cloud, then downloaded to my iPad and laptop. Heaven forbid if I sign out of any of these devices.
Speaking of devices, since I'm on Windows, there's no "optimize" photos option for me. That means, I need to double check my backups before I delete photos from my SSD to save space.
Still not sure if these deletes items from iCloud Photo Library.
When I was having trouble syncing, I figured I use the website to upload. I figured it would work as flawless as Google Photos. Nope. Uploading from the website ignores EXIF data for dates making older photos appear as new photos with the date of the upload appearing as the date the photo was taken.
Also on the website, you can't select multiple photos to delete or create an album. It's a one at a time affair. You can't create folders or move albums into folders. The website is basically useless for organizing.
Since Apple insists on doing everything on my phone, scanning photos for "AI" like faces and such takes forever. And I have to have my phone plugged in and locked for it to do anything. With 25k photos, yikes. I understand Apple's take on privacy, but if my photos are already in iCloud, why can't they use their servers to do the work and just have it show up on my phone? There's got to be a better way for them to do this.
Sharing photos from iCloud with other people reduces the resolution to 2048px and videos to 720p. What a waste. Especially when I'm paying Apple for storage and they won't even share my photos with others at full resolution. This is ridiculous.
I use an app called Metapho to view EXIF data on certain photos. Stuff like, camera model, camera settings, etc. Sometimes I use it to change the date taken information if I see it upload incorrectly. This app flat out stopped working with this large of library.
I have a 256GB iPhone X, enabled full resolution photos to stay on my phone, but yet it takes forever to photos to show up in a photo picker when I'm using social media.
Last edited: