HT204053 iCloud photo storage

MY primary iPhoto and video library is stored on external drive as MacBook storage is too small. For additional storage and access, I recently copied all the photos (45 GB) to iCloud Drive. the storage use for photos on the macbook is now 44GB, leaving little room on the MacBook harddrive. Does iCloud Drive keep a local copy on my harddrive? How can I save photos in an addition place, cloud, any cloud, and leave off my MacBook Air?

Does iCloud Drive keep a local copy on my harddrive? How can I save photos in an addition place, cloud, any cloud, and leave off my MacBook Air?
Yes, iCloud drive is keeping local shadow copies of all documents you store there. So you will not save space on your device.
If you want to save space by moving photos to iCloud, store them iCloud Photo Library and not on iCloud Drive. The new Photos.app supports iCloud Photo Library.
See: Apple - OS X - Photos Preview
Fill your library, not your device.
iCloud Photo Library can help you make the most of the space on your Mac. When you choose “Optimize Mac Storage,” all your full-resolution photos and videos are stored in iCloud in their original formats, with storage-saving versions kept on your Mac as space is needed. You can also optimize storage on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, so you can access more photos and videos than ever before. You get 5GB of free storage in iCloud — and as your library grows, you have the option to choose a plan for up to 1TB.

Similar Messages

ICloud Photo Storage Question

I bought a 16 GB 6 Plus; normally I buy 32 GB but I decided not to this time around. I realized that I don't have much space for photos. Is there a way to just store all of those in the cloud so that it doesn't take up in memory in my phone? I see the iCloud photo library, and apparently I did it right, but I still see them taking up memory on my actual phone. I have the 20 GB iCloud plan, so theres plenty of space to work with. Any help would be appreciated

http://forums.appleinsider.com/t/182394/icloud-photo-library-beta
http://www.macrumors.com/2014/09/12/apple-demotes-icloud-photo-library-beta/

ICloud Photo Storage

I want to back my photos up with the Photos app in iCloud but it says I have 7.63GB of pictures and videos so I will have to buy more storage space. So I went and deleted 500+ pictures and 2 movies but it still says I have the same amount of pictures, 7.63GB.

So I went and deleted 500+ pictures and 2 movies but it still says I have the same amount of pictures, 7.63GB.
Did you empty the "recently deleted" album? Photos moves the deleted items to a hidden trash bin "recently deleted", where they will stay for a month. To empty it immediately, use the command "File > Show Recently Deleted".

TS3989 where's my iCloud photo storage???

I upgraded to the 50GB storage for my Windows Vista 64bit PC with SP2 expecting to be able to store my photo collection from my pc on there as in other clouds like Adobe's creative cloud. But there is no Photos folder on the icloud page where the other folders for iwork etc are from my ipad. And nothing either in iTunes. I followed all the instructions several times, checked all folder names etc. Images from my ipad photostream appear in the photostream folder. But nothing from my pc appears on the ipad.
There was no warning about any issues like this - have I wasted my money?? Or am I missing something? When I go to my account, only my ipad and ipod show up on there, not my pc?

Try the following:
Go in "Settings" > "iCloud" > "Storage" > "Manage Storage".
Do you see anything under "Backups"? If you can find your device here, tap on it and see when the latest backup occurred. If you want to restore this backup, make sure that your iPhone is well charged and go in "Settings" > "General" > "Reset" > "Erase All Content and Settings". WARNING: This will erase everything you have on your new iPhone!! Once the iPhone restart, make sure that it isn't connected to a computer and connect to your WiFi ans instead of selecting "Use as a new iPhone" select "Restore from iCloud". It could take a while to restore if you had lots of stuff on your phone.
Hope that helps!

ICloud Photo Library and iPhone Storage

How can I delete just the locally stored photos/videos on my iPhone? I am using iCloud Photo Library and just imported thousands of pics into Photos for Mac. Now, my iPhone can "see" my entire photos library, but I have 18GB of 'Photos' locally stored on the phone. I would like to be able to delete the locally stored pics but when I try to delete any image (whether I know it's one that is locally stored or know it is one that is in iCloud), it says, "This photo will be deleted from iCloud Photo Library on all of your devices." I do not want to delete it from iCloud, only my iPhone. Thanks in advance!

yeah, I don't think they are allowing you to do this. You can only optimize the locally stored photos, and if the phone fills up with those, it will then dump some from your phone but keep them in the cloud. Like you, I was hoping that once you store a photo in iCloud, you could remove the local copy of the photo. and worse, if you do start deleting photos from your phone, it sounds like they automatically get deleted off of the cloud, after 30 days that is. Doesn't make sense to me. Finally, on your mac, if you have more photos than you have iCloud photo storage, it just stops syncing, rather than just storing your most recent pics?!?

ICloud photo library and iCloud storage

How do I clear up my iCloud photo library because I uploaded all my photos to my Mac so they're safe and I deleted a lot from my phone because I had no use for them since they're on my computer but I still have like no storage on my iCloud. So is it best that I turn off I loud library to clear and then after 30 days turn it back on ?

yeah, I don't think they are allowing you to do this. You can only optimize the locally stored photos, and if the phone fills up with those, it will then dump some from your phone but keep them in the cloud. Like you, I was hoping that once you store a photo in iCloud, you could remove the local copy of the photo. and worse, if you do start deleting photos from your phone, it sounds like they automatically get deleted off of the cloud, after 30 days that is. Doesn't make sense to me. Finally, on your mac, if you have more photos than you have iCloud photo storage, it just stops syncing, rather than just storing your most recent pics?!?

How do I download and immediately delete original photos from iCloud photos?

How do I download and immediately delete all original photos from iCloud photos? This way, I have a local copy of all my iPhone photos, and my iPhone and iCloud space will be reset and empty.
Using the online iCloud web app, you can only select one photo at a time. There is no select all or download all. And when you try to select one by one multiple photos and download, it opens a download "save-as" window for each one! Not one download window for all the selected. So if you select one hundred photos, one hundred download "save-as" windows will pop up, and you have to click the save button one hundred times.
Using my Windows 7 PC, the iCloud app doesn't have iCloud photo sync, only the Photo Stream photos, which is separate.
After researching online, they said the Apple OS X Yosemite Photos app could do this. So I tried my wife's MacBook Pro, and there is a iCloud photo sync, BUT, it tries to merge with her local photos. My 20 GB iCloud is full with my iPhone pictures, and her local photo library is about 50 GB. So it doesn't not even merge or allow the iCloud photo sync to turn on without buying more storage! The Apple OS X Yosemite Photos app doesn't even have a download only feature, OR access the iCloud like a folder to drag and drop photos or like an FTP. WHAT THE?!?!
So there IS ABSOLUTELY NO OPTION SO FAR to download and remove immediately all photos in the iCloud photo storage with ANY device, unless maybe I delete all my wife's photos on her MacBook Pro, which is not an option. Or select one by one thousands of photos on the online web app.
Am I missing something? or is Apple not so user friendly as they seem to be?

Open iphoto. Connect camera.
Import photos.
Does that not work?

How can I remove my iCloud Photo Albums from my iPhone 6 storage, but still use the iCloud Photo Sharing?

I put all my photos from my iPod Touch 4 and my iPhone 4S in iCloud Photo Albums and Labeled them so that when I got the new iPhone 6 on iOS 8.1.2 I could have my previous photos on there for future use. Now I look on my iTunes app on my computer it shows that my storage on my iPhone 6 is almost full. Those Photos in iCloud are taking up all my storage on my iPhone. I know how to add more storage on my iCloud account, I just want to know Is there a way where my iCloud Photo Albums can still be in my iCloud Account, just not taking up all my storage on my iPhone.

Hello mushysun,
Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.
If you did not sign out of your Apple ID on your iPhone before creating a new one, then you will need to sign back in with your previous Apple ID and then sign out. If you do not remember your password and do not have access to the email account, then you can reset your password by using the security questions.
If you forgot your Apple ID password - Apple Support
Have a great weekend,
Alex H.

How does iCloud Photo Library and Optimize iPhone Storage Work?

Even Apple Phone support can't answer these questions:
How does iCloud Photo Library (Beta) from yesterday's 8.1 update with Optimize iPhone Storage turned on work? (I'm on an iPhone 6)
It only stores your iPhone/iPad versions on your device, which is amazing. Why would you need anything else? It freed up around 8-10GB of space on my device which is amazing. But how does it work when you use it?
When you email it seems to ask you, when sending what size you want to send like it's always done. It gives you the original 2.4MB version. This works like I'd imagine and when I received the test email the photo was correct. In this case I assume it hits iCloud and sends it from there, not your actual device. (Like it doesn't re-download it to email it). Correct?
When posting to Facebook, does it do this same thing? Or is this something Facebook has to build into their iOS app in an update? Or does it just work? Correct?
When posting to Instagram, does it grab the right version. Obviously the phone optimized version should be fine, but when viewing on a Desktop version of Instagram at instagram.com, will it show the right version?
Sometimes I backup photos using Image Capture on the Mac. If I did that right now, would it only grab the iPhone versions? Obviously I can just test it but it'd be amazing if someone who knows these things could explain all of these use cases.
Do you need to be on
In closing it's more of how does this work? Does it work? Why wouldn't you want to use this feature if it saved space and made more sense? I guess I just would love some real clarity since not even the blogs are explaining how it works in every application.
In closing part 2. It does seem to work really well, it's just those fringe cases. I just viewed all my photos on https://beta.icloud.com/#photos and they're all there, easy download of the high res, delete, it deletes from my camera roll on my phone, it's amazing, it works, it's magic. Just tell me what issues there are with storing only low res iPhone on my device and if there are none, game on!
Thanks!

santiagofrommiami wrote:
And of those 4.3GB of backup, my Photo Library is 1.4GB.
So my question is, how do I prevent my Photo Library from being backed up to the cloud, since I already have a backup of it everytime I connect to iPhoto and it copies all those photos to my mac?
I don't know, sorry. It's supposed to work alongside Photos & iCloud, so that photos are stored only once. When it doesn't work you have a couple of options as I see it –
Delete the old backups on iCloud to hopefully start over (I don't like deleting the only backup of anything).
Forget about iCloud backups & use iTunes to backup instead, it might not be suitable if you have no computer etc.
Buy more storage for iCloud.
I don't use iCloud backup, it bemuses me with issues like this, there is no easy way to resolve when it fails.
And one more question while we are at it...can I erase iphoto from my computer now that I have the new Photos app?
That is up to you. If you are happy you do not need it & have a backup of it go ahead & remove it. You can re-download it from the app store if it is already in your Mac App store account.

HT204570 iCloud photo library taking up all available iPhone storage

Recently upgraded from iPhoto to iCloud Photo library. It's great, except that it's now taken up all available storage space on my iPhone and I can't even take additional pictures on it. If I delete any pics from my iPhone (to try and free up space), it deletes them from my library and from all of my other devices (Mac mini, MBP, iPad, etc.). I don't want to get rid of the photos, I just want to remove some from the iPhone so that I can actually use the phone. My iCloud Photo library is rather large, and I pay for additional iCloud storage just to be able to accommodate it, but understandably so, my iPhone storage can't accommodate the full library, and I wouldn't expect it to, either.

I've had a similar problem. For me the best solution is to save the photos to my Mac, and then delete them from my phone. This does not however solve the problem with not wanting them to be gone on other devices. Unfortunately, I do not know of a way to exclude a device from having the photo deleted off of it (Wink*Wink* Apple- iOS 9/OS X 10.11? Cough*Cough*). Anyway as for saving space, for me, if I turn off iCloud photo library and then turn it back on again, it will make a lot of space open up. Note: still not total space. I assume that you have a lot of music/photos/apps or something because I have this problem on my 16 GB iPhone, but I don't see how a 64 Gb iPhone can accidentally run out of room. In conclusion, try turning off iCloud Photo Library on and off again. This is my best solution, and it works for me pretty well. Anyway, I hope this helped.

Moving Photos from iCloud Photo Library to Local Storage

Scenario - I've a fully migrated library of photos/videos using iCloud Photo Library on iPhone and Mac. It's near the limit of the iCloud storage plan I purchased and want to retain. I'd like to move older and less frequently used content from iCloud Photo Library to more permanent archival storage.
[This is for two reasons. First, I prefer to use the Full Resolution setting on mobile devices, and that will be impossible as the entire library grows beyond the storage capacity of even the largest mobile devices. Second, I don't feel the need to pay for super-sized iCloud storage for content rarely needed and only needed on a Mac.]
The only option I've identified in Photos to do this is to Export (and delete from iCloud), which exports the original photos, but does not preserve useful Photos metadata and organization, such as Albums.
What one would might like to see is a way to designate selection portions of the Library for local storage only (including backup within the Photos app library package), so those photos can be manipulated within Photos alongside iCloud content, but don't consume iCloud or mobile device space. Or, in the alternative, one would like to see a way to Export content to merge into a separate Photos library package, preserving the metadata/organization. In that way, one could maintain one Photos library as current iCloud synced content, and one or more local-only Photos library packages with archival content (with, importantly, the Export function to move content between the two preserving metadata).
Does anyone know if there's a way to do this? If not, Apple, would you consider coming up with a way to address this need?

{quote:title=Nissin101 wrote @ 3:36pm EMT:}{quote}
Well I was able to move photos from the camera roll to the photo library by sending *the pictures via email to my dad's blackberry, then saving them to my computer from his phone, then putting them back on into the photo library*.
This is what I said originally.
{quote:title=Nissin101 wrote @ 4:08pm EMT:}{quote}
Alright I guess that answers my question then. However, just as I said I was able to transfer photos from my camera roll to my photo library, so at least that is possible.
I never said that I did it directly, neither did I mean to imply that I was looking for a direct solution. This I guess is where our misunderstanding comes from. I just did not feel like repeating the whole process I went through. Regardless, I would rather this thread not derail into who said what and whose misunderstanding who. I now know that it is not possible to get pictures from the photo library to the camera roll in any way, so my question is answered for now at least.

ICloud photo library and iPhone/iPad storage space

Hi,
I use iCloud photo library beta for some time and it's a great feature for apple product. However, I'm a bit worried about what happend after some time. Now I have 20Gb of storage in iCLoud and 16Gb iPhone 6 and iPad air 2. On both of them is the "optimize iPhone/iPad storage" checked. What will happen after I would put 20Gb of photos to the iCloud and the iPhone and iPad wouldn't have enough storage to handle them (even when the photos are optimize)?
Thanks for any response or a link where it is discussed,
Jakub

Hi jakudo,
"optimize iPad/iPhone storage" means that photos don't have to take any storage capacity of your devices, if you are using your devices storage capacity e.g. for other content like music, apps etc. Your photos will be stored in the cloud and only a some of them are stored locally as long as you have storage space available. The only thing you have to do, is upgrading for more storage as soon as your passing the 20 GB.
With kind regards,
David

Mac storage full during upload to iCloud Photo Library

MacBook Air (13-inch, Mid 2013)
1.3 GHz Intel Core i5
4 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Intel HD Graphics 5000 1536 MB
OS X 10.10.3
I'm uploading my Photos Library to the iCloud Photo Library because I don't have enough space left in my Mac (around 7 GB left).
When I started uploading, it went down to 3 GB, and now stopped uploading because Photos is telling me that "Your Mac Storage is full. This Mac is no longer updating because there is not enough space to store optimized versions of your photos and videos."
I don't understand why it's taking up space when it's supposed to minimize space taken by my library.
I have upgraded my iCloud Storage to 200GB, so there should be no problem with that (iPhoto Library is only ~120GB)
Would appreciate any help!

Hey benjfromlewes. Thanks for helping out!
Something pretty neat seems to happening when Photos creates its library from iPhotos because my machine didn't have anything like enough storage to achieve this (I had about 15 Gig free, and my iPhotos library was about 100 Gig). I suspect that it Photos probably shares the images files with iPhoto in some way, but I don't know. Anyway – removing the iPhoto library did still fee up lots of space for me.
I was thinking about deleting the old iPhoto Library, but then (like what you think) it seems that Photos and iPhoto are sharing files, even though they're separate. Because I only had 7 GB left when I updated to Photos and that created ~100 GB library, so it's impossible that I have an invisible extension.
I can't wait to delete it though, but I think I'll wait until after uploading everything to the cloud--just to be extra sure.
I'm don't know why Photos increases its storage requirement during the upload phase. Perhaps it has to keep all the original images locally until they are all uploaded, rather than removing the high quality images as it goes along. I've decided to keep the high resolution images locally anyway now: they're useful for printing and such.
It's working again now, I deleted some movies and restarted. This increased my space to 5.5 GB. I've been monitoring it since and noticed that Photos brought it down to 4 GB, going up and down slightly from there. But it hasn't stopped since. Hoping it'll continue on like this and not require any more space.

ICloud Photo library storage optimisation

I cannot make this think work..! Open , close IPL buttons...! but ...! same storage in my iPhone and in my iCloud..!

See the quote below from iCloud Photo Library beta FAQ - Apple Support
That link has some other details but doesn't explicitly state (at least that I could find) how the situation where you have photos from other sources added to iCloud Photo Library are dealt with on your phone if you no longer have space.
How does iCloud Photo Library save space on my device?
If you turn on Optimize [device] Storage, iCloud Photo Library will automatically manage the size of your library on your iOS device, so you can make the most of your device's storage and access more photos than ever. iCloud Photo Library stores the original, high-resolution photos and videos in iCloud and can keep lightweight, device-optimized versions on each of your devices. As long as you have enough storage, recent photos and videos that you access the most will stay on your device at full resolution.
To turn on Optimize [device] Storage on your device, tap Settings > iCloud > Photos or Settings > Photos & Camera, then select Optimize [device] Storage. You need an Internet connection to access an original photo or video that’s stored only in iCloud.

ICloud photo library uses physical storage on iPad?

I'm confused by exactly what the point of iCloud photo library is since it's using storage on any device I share an album with. Is this a setting that it downloads pictures automatically? I've tested this on my ipad and my wife's, on both devices sharing an album and accepting it used storage.

Thanks for your reply.
Just found an informative article by iMore that kind of explained it in more detail. However, no official documentation from Apple regarding this subject at all, which is frustrating. The claim is that you shouldn't ever have to delete photos for the sake of saving space. It'll just automatically manage your storage for you. I still don't know exactly how.
"iCloud Photo Library's Optimize Storage option automatically and smartly takes a percentage of your device's storage space for high-resolution versions of your photos; any images or video that can't fit in that space are stored as low-resolution thumbnails. This space is variable, too — it doesn't take up every speck of free space you have, instead appropriating a portion of your free space to photo storage, and it adjusts smartly on the fly."
Again, what is the percentage of free storage it uses? 10%? 25%? 60%? We have know way of knowing for now.

HT204053 iCloud photo storage

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