Photostream is super confusing.

[iHavequestions]

I'm so confused about how photostream works. At some point, it stored a ton of photos. I know there are rules from this support page http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4858 but I'm way under the limit.

I also have other confusion.

I have different sets of photos showing between the photostream on my iPhone vs the iPad vs iPhoto on my Mac. They all seem to have different sets of photos. On the iPhone, it seems to not date as far back as my iPhoto on my mac.

I'm also confused to which version of the photostream actually plays on my AppleTV and Macbook when I have the screensaver on.

 

[Sirious]

I'm so confused about how photostream works. At some point, it stored a ton of photos. I know there are rules from this support page http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4858 but I'm way under the limit.

I also have other confusion.

I have different sets of photos showing between the photostream on my iPhone vs the iPad vs iPhoto on my Mac. They all seem to have different sets of photos. On the iPhone, it seems to not date as far back as my iPhoto on my mac.

I'm also confused to which version of the photostream actually plays on my AppleTV and Macbook when I have the screensaver on.

Have you tried turning all your Photostreams off and then on again?

 

[Armen]

I know exactly what he's talking about. I've seen different photos in photo stream depending on what iOS version I was restoring.

If Apple could give us direct access to photostream via browser we could sort this out.

 

[jraske]

Try this program. I've read a few reviews that have been positive.

http://raffael.me/MyPhotostream/

 

[iHavequestions]

Try this program. I've read a few reviews that have been positive.

http://raffael.me/MyPhotostream/

Thanks. I'll try this tonight and report back.

 

[charlituna]

I'm so confused about how photostream works. At some point, it stored a ton of photos. I know there are rules from this support page http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4858 but I'm way under the limit.

I also have other confusion.

I have different sets of photos showing between the photostream on my iPhone vs the iPad vs iPhoto on my Mac. They all seem to have different sets of photos. On the iPhone, it seems to not date as far back as my iPhoto on my mac.

I'm also confused to which version of the photostream actually plays on my AppleTV and Macbook when I have the screensaver on.

okay lets see if some of this can be cleared up.

Photostream in your iCloud account is storing per the rules you noted. My Photo Stream is 1000 photos/30 days. Shared streams, up to 1000 photos or videos under 5 minutes per stream, up to 100 streams. no 'date' expiration on Shared Streams

As I remember these are the photos that the Apple TV sees.

In contrast, your computer and devices don't auto delete 'old' photos from your personal stream. So your iPhone etc could have thousands of photos in your personal stream that have accumulated over time. The only way those get deleted automatically from devices is if you turn off My Photo Stream or restore the whole device. Only the rule abiding photos are up there to come back. This is also how you can have different photos between two devices, if they were turned on at different times.

And the computer is also odd because of the 'automatic import' function. You have the photos in the stream but you also can have several 'photo stream events'

 

[TheRainKing]

When you turn on photo stream it will only download pictures taken within the last 30 days.

 

[Harmonious Zen]

The weirdest thing about all this is that Photostream doesn't sync the same photos on my non-iOS devices like my Mac and my Apple TV. Sort of annoying.

 

[Daysight]

Try this program. I've read a few reviews that have been positive.
http://raffael.me/MyPhotostream/

I started to look at that app but was turned off by having to register for another service. I'd prefer a Finder-type experience. I tried the Finder search workaround floating around the Internet but lately it quit working and I gave up trying to fix it.

 

[Macman45]

It's far from easy, but once tamed it works.

I use Aperture and have several shared albums in addition to my projects. The projects appear in a finder type pane on the left hand side if Apertures main window.

Every couple of days, or if I've been shooting a lot with my phone, I go in and click the ICloud button. This shows me all my photo stream items, and although I don't use it, I'm guessing iPhoto is similar.

I then move photos I want to keep from the photo stream to the project they belong in, or I create a new one if required.

I then drag any photos I want to share into the shared photo stream.

Then I delete all but current items from photo stream.


This is then synced to my IPad and phone, and all items are pretty much the same on my phone, iPad and ATV's although the images on the ATV units do differ for some reason.

That's as close as I've got to a workflow with it really.