iCloud Photos: What You Need to Know

[jonjp]

I have several libraries created using iPhoto /Aperture and other apps. These contain a good number of duplicated images. Does the new Photos app detect duplicates and would it allow the user to select which of these select/discard, and does the Photos app have the functionality to import from other apps.other than iPhoto/Aperture?

I don't have the need to have access to all of my pictures in all of my iOS devices; I might want to select a few of these. The bulk of my pictures I want to store in an external drive. Does the Photos app setting allows the user to accomplish that?

I also have a large number of pictures stored just in a finder folder and I want to include these in the Photos lib. Once imported, I want to delete all of these pictures. When I delete these pictures, the ones moved to the Photos lib are affected?

My goal is to consolidate all of my pictures (my guess is over 25K) in one place, free the space these pictures are now using and do better at managing what I now have.

A friend suggested I use Light Room instead of Photos to accomplish what I want to do and use iCloud only to have access to a few pictures on the IOS devices. What do you think about that idea?

Thanks for any input.

I empathise with you rivalbetony. I am also moving from Aperture to Photos and trying to find a way to set up a convenient workflow. My current thinking is to use Lightroom and send a smaller subset of photos to iCloud. Here what is really frustrating me and why iCloud Photo won't work for me:

1. I have over 200GB of photos and don't want to pay even more for yet another monthly subscription!

2. I often use my iPad to dump my camera photos in when travelling. That's often gigabytes a day. But with Photos, those photos are going to start uploading straight away! Can't stop it - it's a run away monster!! And if I happen to tether to an expensive mobile plan via my phone, yikes! - there goes the month's tiny allocation. And if I want to use the hotel's shared wifi, well, dominating the bandwidth not very considerate to other guests.

3. Even at home - I have a broadband plan that gives 150GB peak bandwidth and 150GB off-peak (overnight). It will take weeks to get my photos up there, again with no control to stop it crippling my other internet use. I want to schedule it to run during off-peak times. Other services (Crashplan, Backblaze, etc.) do this. Surely Apple can.

So, I am not a very happy customer at present. They don't seem to have thought this through very well. In short, I just want a way to upload & share my "best" photos, control the uploads, have edits synced across devices. I am hoping Lightroom and the Adobe app will do this - although not as elegantly as Apple could have.

Interested to see if others have better ideas or opinions.

 

[SickWalrusman]

I have a lot of questions but I can answer a couple. There was someone who was wondering how the optimized storage can still work if their icloud space is greater than their storage on their phone.

I've been using the Photos for Mac for a couple weeks already and can tell u optimizing any other device is the way to go. Select Download to Mac in the Mac preferences in the Photos app. That way u still have full res somewhere. I have a 180gb photo library in icloud right now and a 64 gb iPhone 6. With Optimize my iPhone turned on the library takes up anywhere from 2-4 GB. It's when u start editing videos and photos that that number grows bigger because it then downloads in full resolution those pics and videos. How does it get rid of them after to continue conserving space? I don't know. That's my question. Once it downloads it to my knowledge it doesn't delete the full resolution pic or video off the device. And don't hit delete because that'll delete it from icloud. But Optimizing it will take a 20gb photo library and easily be able to fit it on a 16gb iPhone. Just don't download your whole library!

Thanks for this info, I've been panicking about how this was going to work. It's going to be a pain in the arse just trusting that the phone will know what pics I want to look at and when I need more memory on my phone available. There should be an option to limit the number of GB that iCloud synced photo and videos take up on your phone.

My Photos library is 200gb so I just hope my iPhone and iPad don't get swamped - from the sounds of your post I should be ok.

 

[SuperKerem]

Does no one has problems with importing their library?

I have an aperture library of 170 Gb, 35k photos, and I've tried it numerous to import it in photos, but to no avail.

It always stops at about 90% with an unknown error that occurred.

I've tried rebuilding the library, did a fresh install of Yosemite but nothing seems to help.

Other - smaller - libraries import fine, but my main library doesn't. Any ideas?

I'd love to have my photos in the cloud...

Thanks!

Same here, I'm unable to transfer by importing, have to do it manually.

 

[Anonymous Freak]

Update on my front:

I have a 200 GB iPhoto library. (~30,000 photos, ~2000 videos.)

It took the better part of a few hours, but Photos did import it, apparently successfully. A few oddities about the new layout (I had 'subfolders' in my albums, those are now all 'first level'. So my 'vacations' folder no longer exists, just the individual vacation subfolders.)

And my slow-as-molasses-upload DSL is likely to take a month or more to upload them all to iCloud. I'm seriously considering getting Comcrap for a month just so I can upload these in a reasonable timeframe...

 

[Trahearne]

2. I often use my iPad to dump my camera photos in when travelling. That's often gigabytes a day. But with Photos, those photos are going to start uploading straight away! Can't stop it - it's a run away monster!! And if I happen to tether to an expensive mobile plan via my phone, yikes! - there goes the month's tiny allocation. And if I want to use the hotel's shared wifi, well, dominating the bandwidth not very considerate to other guests.

Doesn't iCloud Photo Library upload only when you have WiFi?
Edit: Oh, I see, tethering.

The official FAQ said though:

When you turn on iCloud Photo Library on your devices, your photos and videos will begin to upload after you connect to the Internet using Wi-Fi. You can see the status on the Photos tab and pause upload for one day from Settings > iCloud > Photos.

 

[Trahearne]

I have a lot of questions but I can answer a couple. There was someone who was wondering how the optimized storage can still work if their icloud space is greater than their storage on their phone.

I've been using the Photos for Mac for a couple weeks already and can tell u optimizing any other device is the way to go. Select Download to Mac in the Mac preferences in the Photos app. That way u still have full res somewhere. I have a 180gb photo library in icloud right now and a 64 gb iPhone 6. With Optimize my iPhone turned on the library takes up anywhere from 2-4 GB. It's when u start editing videos and photos that that number grows bigger because it then downloads in full resolution those pics and videos. How does it get rid of them after to continue conserving space? I don't know. That's my question. Once it downloads it to my knowledge it doesn't delete the full resolution pic or video off the device. And don't hit delete because that'll delete it from icloud. But Optimizing it will take a 20gb photo library and easily be able to fit it on a 16gb iPhone. Just don't download your whole library!

I guess your phone has plenty of free space, no? I'm not sure if it does work in this way, but given the information, it will likely stay there until your storage space hit a certain threshold set by the iOS, and has to release space from the Photos app for other apps. Maybe there is also a time threshold where photos and videos that aren't accessed for a certain time would get "optimised".

 

[ercsliberty]

hi all, question, i have the 200 gigds icloud plan and want to upload all my photos from my pc (windows 7)
does any one know whats the best way to upload as many as 30k photos (150 gigs) to my icloud so i can view them on my iphone and ipad? thanks

 

[calimed]

Uploading

I've got 2 files left out of 25,000 that have uploaded to iCloud. It's taken nearly 2 weeks to upload it. Unfortunately its been stuck on those 2 files for hours. I''m assuming its some large video or something its uploading. Is there a way to know what file in being synced?

Thx

 

[SuperMatt]

I've got 2 files left out of 25,000 that have uploaded to iCloud. It's taken nearly 2 weeks to upload it. Unfortunately its been stuck on those 2 files for hours. I''m assuming its some large video or something its uploading. Is there a way to know what file in being synced?

Thx

Not sure how to check the exact file, but it's more likely a damaged or corrupted file.

 

[calimed]

Delete all pictures in cloud

**

 

[Jamesk811]

I am testing out the OS X Yosemite beta and mostly interested in the beta for testing out photos app. But unlike many other beta testers out there I can't get past 13% where I keep getting this error as you can see in the attachment. It keeps telling me photos was unable to make a backup of my library before preparing it. Am I doing something wrong? How can I get around this? Thanks

 

[Dany M]

does icloud.com work for photos. it keeps saying its preparing the library :/

 

[export800]

same here. It used to work now it appears broken.

does icloud.com work for photos. it keeps saying its preparing the library :/

 

[austinlee168]

Videos on iPhone not syncing correctly

I've turned on iCloud Photo Library both on my Mac and iPhone, and they are uploading right now. So far I'm seeing the photos syncing correctly. However, the problem is that the videos are not. I can see all of the existing videos on my Mac showing up on my iPhone, but not the other way around. All the recent videos I took on my iPhone are NOT showing up on the Mac.

Anybody also has this problem? I have a feeling that this has something to do with the existing Photostream, since Photostream doesn't allow syncing of vidoes. This is all very confusing. What exactly happens if you turn on iCloud Photo Library, but continue to use Photostream? Why would you need the latter if you have the former?

 

[Jamesk811]

I've turned on iCloud Photo Library both on my Mac and iPhone, and they are uploading right now. So far I'm seeing the photos syncing correctly. However, the problem is that the videos are not. I can see all of the existing videos on my Mac showing up on my iPhone, but not the other way around. All the recent videos I took on my iPhone are NOT showing up on the Mac.

Anybody also has this problem? I have a feeling that this has something to do with the existing Photostream, since Photostream doesn't allow syncing of vidoes. This is all very confusing. What exactly happens if you turn on iCloud Photo Library, but continue to use Photostream? Why would you need the latter if you have the former?

You would only need photo stream if you have any devices not using iCloud Photo Library. If all you devices are using iCloud Photo Library I would definitely switch photo stream off. That's my understanding.

 

[austinlee168]

IPL's optimize storage option

I've just started using iCloud Photo Library and so far it's unclear to me how the "optimize storage" option works, especially on the iPhone. How does it control which images are stored locally on the device, and which are stored in the cloud? When my local photo storage reaches a certain amount, does it automatically upload them to the cloud to save space? If so, what is the ceiling?

I ask this because I'm worried if I keep using IPL and continue shooting photos on my iPhone and never delete any of them for years to come, how full will my iPhone be? As we know, when we delete photos from IPL, they're gone for good. Storage anxiety is a real thing!

If anyone has any knowledge or similar experience, please share!

Thank you!

 

[CrzyP]

iCloud Photo Library: What You Need to Know

Where is the promised Windows support? If they're calling icloud.com Windows support, then I am disabling this and not paying 0.99 for 20gbs of cloud storage any longer. OneDrive is the way to go.

 

[nvjusme]

My wife and I have sepsrate Mac id's, do I need two iCloud's?

Hey everyone,
I have an Apple ID and so does my wife and we have two phones obviously.
Does she need to have iCloud also or can I just pay for iCloud on my phone and then let her use my 20gbof backup somehow?

Is there a family option for iCloud to where we can sync two phones to one iCloud account?thanks

 

[jennyp]

I still don't understand all this. It just seems absurd.

Say you're a keen photographer, using a DSLR as well as your iPhone. You have iCloud Photo Library enabled on your Mac and your iPhone.

Now suppose you have a gazillion images in the Photos app on your Mac (like you would, right?) - surely that's going to fill up your iPhone's storage capacity, even if you tick the "Optimise iPhone Storage" option in your iCloud iPhone settings? I mean, we have 1TB options being mentioned in the context of iCloud Photo storage, so how on earth is anything close to such a capacity going to be represented on your limited-capacity iPhone?

And what about accidentally losing your images - you delete one of your favourite images from your iPhone, and that's it - it's gone from the cloud, and gone from your Mac too - gone from everywhere. Wouldn't it have been a thousand times better to be able to specify a "master storage" device (or cloud location) from which photos would *not* get deleted when they're deleted on other devices?

Other things I don't understand - if I take a photo with my iPhone, and my iPhone is set to "Optimise iPhone Storage" as above, does that mean it only keeps a down-sampled version, but nevertheless sends a full-sized version to my Mac (if my Mac is set to keep originals)? If so, that's just plain ridiculous.

All this makes my head ache and makes me think, I might just play with iCloud Photo Library, using a few "specimen" photos, just to see how it works, but I'll be keeping my precious "real" photos well away from this one.

 

[gpspad]

Someone on another thread brought up a good point that is is meant to synch photos between a bunch of devices. Not necessarily be a master storage archive of a huge libraries of photos.

With that in mind, a lot of my same concerns didn't seem as big a deal. I think the new iCloud photo system will be better than photosteam. Not a total library for all my photos, just a way to give all my devices access to them.

In my case Ill have to look for a proper photo archiving program that can export to apples photo program. Then keep a backup of that photo library.

 

[Razeus]

Can't use this on the basis of how Apple treats their software. Judging by how they never upgraded iTunes Match to work better, I don't expect them to do much with this.

 

[GlenK]

I was reluctant to use the IPL until this weekend and finally bit the bullet.

Well I have to admit I was wrong. It does work extremely well and I like the whole process. I like the recently deleted photo feature as well. It gives you 30 days to correct a mistake.

It's easy to move photos anywhere you want them. Once I hit "view sidebar" life got a whole lot easier.

Still learning a lot but am now confident this will work well!!

 

[Jamesk811]

I still don't understand all this. It just seems absurd.

Say you're a keen photographer, using a DSLR as well as your iPhone. You have iCloud Photo Library enabled on your Mac and your iPhone.

Now suppose you have a gazillion images in the Photos app on your Mac (like you would, right?) - surely that's going to fill up your iPhone's storage capacity, even if you tick the "Optimise iPhone Storage" option in your iCloud iPhone settings? I mean, we have 1TB options being mentioned in the context of iCloud Photo storage, so how on earth is anything close to such a capacity going to be represented on your limited-capacity iPhone?

And what about accidentally losing your images - you delete one of your favourite images from your iPhone, and that's it - it's gone from the cloud, and gone from your Mac too - gone from everywhere. Wouldn't it have been a thousand times better to be able to specify a "master storage" device (or cloud location) from which photos would *not* get deleted when they're deleted on other devices?

Other things I don't understand - if I take a photo with my iPhone, and my iPhone is set to "Optimise iPhone Storage" as above, does that mean it only keeps a down-sampled version, but nevertheless sends a full-sized version to my Mac (if my Mac is set to keep originals)? If so, that's just plain ridiculous.

All this makes my head ache and makes me think, I might just play with iCloud Photo Library, using a few "specimen" photos, just to see how it works, but I'll be keeping my precious "real" photos well away from this one.

Who said anything about needing to have all the gazillion images on your iPhone? As long as all your originals are on your Mac and in the cloud, you just need to set up a second library and store photos in there that you aren't going to really use/edit anymore.

If you delete an image anywhere you have 30 days to restore it as it gets put into recently deleted folder.

In saying that I have a 190gb library on the 200gb iCloud plan and it only uses such a small fraction of my phone storage it's not that noticeable and if it starts getting too full iCloud will further reduce image sizes to lee creating you more space

 

[InsideTJ]

I'm liking the way photos works with ICPL. i have about 50gb pf photos in ICPL, most uploaded by the Mac photos app, but I also have my iPhone ICPL turned on.

That said, I still want to keep an offline archive. There does not seem to be an easy way to determine NEW iPhone photos. i've tried image capture, photo transfer app, and they do not seem to keep track of what is 'new' since last import. i guess the old workflow paradigm is no longer valid.

I set up a smart album and set the date to 'newer than' whatever my last archive date was and export them to my offline archive. It's not perfect, as I may end up duplicating a few in my offline archive.

Any other ideas?

 

[gnasher729]

Great, it immediately starts uploading my existing (iPhoto) photo's to the cloud, and my iPhone starts syncing. So what is the use of the cloud if my 16GB iPhone tries to sync with the 20GB cloud that has now been filled up by the photo app?

Your phone doesn't download the photos at full resolution, just enough to display them on the phone. You can download the high quality photos at any time.