Photostream on my PC

[newanddifferent]

Hi, I've got an iPhone 4s, and I'm using iCloud/Photostream to send my pictures to my Windows 8 PC. The thing is, I thought that this method would back up my photos...but it turns out that anytime a photo is deleted from my iPhone photostream, it's deleted from my PC as well!

Also, I can't seem to find a setting anywhere that STOPS my iphone from deleting my old photos. Worst part? I didn't know this was happening, and I've lost a LOT of photos. I have plenty of room on my phone - why would my phone just delete my old photos without any instructions to do so?!

This seems like an incredibly simple problem, but I can't find ANYWHERE that helps me out.

All I want is for my photos to transfer to my computer and stay there. I don't want them to delete themselves! I don't want them to delete themselves from my phone either, but I don't think I get a choice in that matter...do I?

I understand that I can manually sync my phone and transfer my photos...and if I remember to do it every 30 days, I won't lose any photos. But that seems so draconian! Manually sync your iphone every 30 days...OR ELSE!

Please, there has GOT to be a solution to this! Thank you all so much for your help!

 

[woodynorman]

I believe photstream only holds 1000 photos and after that the old ones are removed automatically

 

[mattopotamus]

That is the major benefit to photostream...you delete a photo here, it is gone there. What you need to do is create a different folder on your computer and move the photo stream photos to it...problem solved

 

[PNutts]

OP I'm confused. Ignoring PhotoStream, your photos are being deleted from the Camera Roll by themselves? The phone by itself won't do that. Are you using an applicatoin to sync and manage your photos with or without iTunes?

With that said, when you plug your phone into Windows it will appear in Windows Explorer. You can open it and copy your photos to the PC. I don't rely on PhotoStream to do anything for me other than be disaster recovery if the phone is lost or stolen and I haven't copied the pictures out yet. I manually copy the photos and videos off my phone and onto my PC. As the other poster mentioned, I copy them to a different folder than PhotoStream.