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

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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?!?

HT204264 iDevice Sync Query - IOS Photos & iCloud Photo Library over filling ipad iphone storage - what happens next?

Device Sync Query - IOS Photos & iCloud Photo Library fills ipad iphone storage - what happens next?
Quick question, when you select IOS Photo / IiCloud storage (photos are optimised etc) what happens when ipad / iphone storage is full and you now need to add new apps, photos etc? In my case I have 3 * 64gb ipads & 2 * 128 gb iphone but these are all filling up with photos since enabling IOS Photo & iCloud Photo Library (as all of my photos on each device are now copbined on every device as well as the cloud). This has become a problem as when I try to sync my idevice I get the device full warning (and I am assuming I now need to delete apps / videos if I want to sync or make more space for new photos etc). As far as I can tell once you enable IOS Photos and iCloud all photos will upload at original resolution and download at idevice resolution and there is no way to select / control the photos you want to keep on phone (eg if you delete photo on phone it will now delete the original on cloud).
Couple of questions / Suggestions:
- Will IOS Photos on IOS device automatically lower resolution of pics or use thumbnails for old photos that are already in icloud to ensure that there is space on device for new photos, apps videos music etc. Eg will old photos that have already been uploaded in icloud be replaced by new apps videos music etc (not sure that the IOS Sync or iCloud currently does this)
- Is there away to limit control or limit the number of IOS photos that sync to each idevice (eg by starring photos)? I had a look and can not see away to select photos you want to keep or remove (without deleting them on cloud). As per above I am hoping that the IOS sync and icloud systems are smart enough to replace Photos that have already upgraded to cloud with a lower quality / thumbnail to make more more room for new photos and apps (but not clear if this occurs)
- If this is a problem now what happens once the new PHOTOS launches for OS Desktop eg will it add in all our photos from iphoto to the icloud then to the idevice as part of the OS PHOTOS UPGRADE. I have 15-30 gb of photos in IPHOTO that are now backing up to icloud, there needs to be away to only select starred photos or albums or every photo try to download to my iphone (which will kill my storage). There also needs to be away to keep photos on idevice (for those times when you do not have internet and can not download from iCloud to iDevice
Apologies if I have missed something obvious and welcome any thoughts & answers.
If there is no solution then Apple needs to look at this and highlight it as a risk to customers who switch as this is being sold as a way to minimise your device storage but can lead to to customers using up more storage for photos on ipad iphone as a result of switch to IOS PHOTOS &
iCloud Photo Library

Things are not as dire as they might seem at first glance. My 66GB iPhoto Library became a 40GB iCloud Photo Library (~11K photos, ~300 videos) and only uses 2.2GB on my iPad and 2.4GB on my iPhone. Scaling that experience, a 64GB/128GB iOS device should be able to easily handle a 300GB iPhoto library. My iPad and iPhone are 32GB devices and I expect them to be livable through at least 30-40K of photos.
16GB devices have always been problematic for space even before iCloud Photo Library so I'd expect anybody with a 16GB device and more than a few thousand photos is not going to be able to use iCloud Photo Library with it. They will have to use iCloud Photo Streaming to get photos to iCloud Photo Library and iCloud Photo Sharing or iTunes syncing to get a subset of photos back to the device. Not a great solution but workable. However, it wrecks one of the best features for me which is using my iPad to edit the photos I take on my iPhone.
The part that worries me is the automatic space management routine. The problem it creates is that I might want to add a movie, but there won't be enough space, and my only option will be to reset iCloud Photo Library on the device to get back to all thumbnails on it to see if that gets me the space I need. I've already had to do it a couple of times with iTunes Match and it's not fun. It all depends on how aggressive Photo Library will be in trimming off full-size photos/videos and Apple appears to be leaving it a black box at this point. It would at least be nice to know an estimate of the minimum size so I know how much space I can recapture.

Difference between iCloud Photo Library and Upload to My Photo Stream?

What is the difference between the iCloud Photo Library and the Upload to My Photo Stream options in the iCloud settings on my iPhone / iPad? Is it that uploading to the iCloud Photo Library uploads the images to iCloud (for viewing via browser) and using the Photo Stream only syncs the images between iOS devices?
I've had an iPad for awhile but I just got my first iPhone and I'm trying to understand the sync behavior. It seems that with both options enabled (iCloud and Photo Stream), every single image, screenshot, picture downloaded from Twitter, etc is all getting lumped together in the All Photos album and then synced everywhere. I absolutely do not want this. Can I have just a Camera Roll folder that syncs between devices, and then downloads / screenshots / etc stay local to the device without syncing?
I'm coming from Windows Phone, which worked exactly how I just described. Pictures taken with the phone went to the Camera Roll and the Camera Roll synced to OneDrive, and then images downloaded via other apps, or screenshots, went to separate albums that did not sync (unless I configured those albums to sync). This way everything was logically separated, easy to find, and I had complete control over the syncing behavior. This is what I'm trying to replicate on my iPhone.
Oh, is it true that every image *has* to be in the All Photos albums? There's no way to move screenshots and downloads to separate albums so they don't get cluttered with pictures I take? Or can I enable a separate Camera Roll folder?
Jason

I realize no one is twisting my arm to use anything. But that doesn't stop me from being disappointed about iOS's photo management capabilities compared to what I was used to in Windows Phone.
I already have unlimited OneDrive storage per my Office 365 account so that's not an issue. I just assumed that iCloud would be a more elegant photo syncing solution since it's built into the OS so that was the path I wanted to pursue. However now that I have a better understanding of the iCloud solution, it's clear that I'll stick with the OneDrive app for iOS to automatically back up my photos there instead of iCloud.
Not trying to be snarky and I do appreciate the info and links provided - those definitely helped.
Jason

ICloud Photo Library taking up too much space

I am using iCloud Photo library, and noticed that it was taking up too much of my iCloud memory. I have 4 photos and no videos, and that uses around 300 MB of storage. What can I do to change this? Is this a bug?

If I upload my entire Photo Library to iCloud Drive, then delete photos from my Library (on my computer), can I still access those deleted photos on my iCloud Drive?
An iPhoto library will not work properly on iCloud Drive. It will be corrupted by the syncing. An iPhoto Library needs to be on a locally connected volume or on your system drive. Move your iPhoto Library to a small portable drive as described here: Use locally mounted Mac OS X Extended volumes for your Aperture library
A second problem is, that you cannot save space on your computer by uploading to iCloud Drive, because iCloud will keep local shadow copies of all items in your user library. Moving files to include Drive will not save any space at all. (iCloud Drive FAQ)

ICloud Photo Library and iPhoto/Time Capsule

Ok, so I'm thinking about getting a Time Capsule. I use iCloud Photo Library and also use iPhoto to sync my photos to my Macbook. I have the storage optimizer turned on in iCloud Photo Library.
That being said, let's say that I sync my iPhone to my Macbook and import my photos into iPhoto. Presumably, this is only going to import the photos in the storage-optimized resolution, correct? My goal here is to have my full-resolution photos backed up both to iCloud as well as iPhoto/Time Capsule. Is there any way to do that other than to turn off the size optimization? The big problem problem I see with that is that when my phone gets full and I have to clear off the photos, this clears them from iCloud as well and I'm left with only the Time Capsule backup.
Am I wrong or have they kind of made these two products somewhat incompatible? Is this something that's going to be addressed with the new Photos app for OSX, where you can download the original resolution files from iCloud into Photos and then back up?

Yes, the photos will still stream from My Photo Stream to iPhoto on your Mac, even with iCloud Photo Library Beta enabled. Like before, the camera.app needs to be closed and the device connected to Wi-Fi, and properly charged.
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ICloud Photo Library and Family Sharing

Does anyone know how the iCloud Photo Library and Family Sharing accounts interact? I'd rather not have to specify what to share with the rest of the family if I don't have to.

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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.

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?!?

I turned off iCloud Photo Library and switched it back on, and now it says my photos won't fit on my Mac.

I migrated my iPhoto Library to the new Photos app with no problem, and when it finished migrating, I switched on iCloud Photo Library, again with no problem. My entire photo library uploaded, and I chose to keep the originals stored on my Mac.
This all went according to plan, but I just switched iCloud Photo Library off, and then on again, and now it says that the "full-resolution photos and videos stored in iCloud will not fit on this Mac." This is can't be the case, because the full-resolution files are already on my mac, that's where they came from before I even uploaded them to the cloud. It seems like it's trying to download them all again, without recognizing that the same photos that are in the cloud, are already on my Mac.
Any advice on how I can solve this?

You may not really be connected to your WiFi network.
Your router may not have given your iPad a valid IP address. Go to Settings > Wifi > your network name and touch the ">" to the right to see the network details. If the IP address starts with 169 or is blank then your router didn't provide an IP address and you won't be able to access the Internet.
Sometimes the fix can be as simple as restarting your router (remove power for 30 seconds and restart). Next, reset network settings on your iPad (Settings > General > Reset > Reset network settings) and then attempt to connect. In other cases it might be necessary to update the router's firmware with the latest from the manufacturer's support web pages.

Photo library and iphone pictures

I have an Iphone 3gs.
The problem is in Photos.
I should be showing the following
Camera roll
Photo stream
Iphone Pictures
And I am
But I am also showing
Photo Library
Which is a Duplicate of Iphone Pictures
When I go into Itunes to the "select photos from" menu and pick "Iphone Pictures",
Itunes will duplicate the Iphone Pictures album with one called "Photo Library".
When I look on my PC I find Iphone Pictures but do not find "Photo Library".
When I move the Iphone Pictures album to a different directory and replace it with a new
one, the Photo library goes away. Then I try to copy and paste the photos to the new
"Iphone Pictures" folder and resync. The Photo Library comes back as a duplicate again.
This is frustrating.
Please Help

This is the way Apple handles photos on the iphone. it is normal and is correct.
Just as a book can be in the library and in the fiction section, a pic can be accessed from the folder you sync and the photo library. There are noe two copies, simply two places from which to access the same photo.
If you add several folders/albums, then all pics can be accessed from photo library, and the same photos can be accessed from their respective folders.

HT4236 How do I delete the photos in my "Photo library" and "Iphone photo" albums?

Help in deleting photos
I can look at my photos on my Iphone like a hard drive and copy and paste the photos to my computer. I can then delete a batch at a time on the Iphone camera roll. However, how do I delete the 242 photos in my "photo library" album and the 242 duplicate photos in my "Iphone photo" album? When I click on the arrow box icon in the upper right corner of my phone, I can click on a photo, but the delete icon is not available.
I am trying to free up more space on my phone and I want to delete these photos that I have already downloaded to my computer.

Check and see if they synced from more than one computer app.
In itunes, Photos> Check mark "Sync Photos from". See what else is in the drop down menu. (i.e. iphoto, pictures folder, Aperture, choose folder, etc.). If you get the option to: Select Albums, Events, Faces and automatically include. Check mark that, and see if any blue album, or events are ticked. If so, uncheck mark and go down and click Apply/Sync.

How to delete all my photos from my iphone for storage space

my photos are taking up a large portion of the storage on my phone...i've uploaded them to my computer and now i'd like to delete them all so i have more room for music. how can i delete them for good on my phone? is there any way to delete the following albums (or at least the pictures from the albums) : events from my mac, faces from my mac, and the last 12 months album. i just want to be able to put more music on my phone but my pictures are taking up more than half of the storage! please help

If you've synced photos to your iPhone through iTunes, change your sync settings in iTunes to not sync any photos and apply the change.
That will remove all synced photos, but not photos that you've taken with your iPhone's camera -- for those if you've imported them to your computer then to remove them you have to delete them one by one from the iPhone, or use your computer (assuming you have a Mac, iPhoto should allow you to select and delete what's stored on the iPhone, except for synced photos via iTunes).
Then there's iCloud photos. iCloud only holds the last 30 days of photos, but your device will continue to hold them up to the 1000 photo limit, regardless of how old they are. To reduce these, you can delete one by one, or if you Restore your iPhone that will strip off all iCloud photos, and add back only the last 30 days of iCloud photos, assuming you leave the Photo Stream setting ON in iCloud settings.

Help! switched off icloud photo library and back on and now reuploads 35k 180GB photos!

I have already uploaded 35,000pics and videos totaling 180GB to icloud but as the last items upload seeemed stuck I went to settings and i turned off and back on photo library. That was it! After opening again photos app, aftera scan of my photos, it started REUPLOADING AGAIN 180GB 35,000 photos!!! Please help, I'm desperate!

I've tried this too, but it wasn't uploading them all again, it was just checking every photos and only uploading new ones ... but it checked each and every photo! I have a problem with duplicates instead, and it is the duplicates that get uploaded!

ICloud photo library multiple libraries

Hi,
i just tried something that i think could Beathe useful to all the community.
I enabled iCloud photo library on iPhone, iPad and iMac.
All synced (taking a lot of time) and works flawlessly.
Then i needed to find a workaround for obtaining what i need.
I only want on iCloud photo library the last year of photos, so i did this:
- on Mac duplicate the photo library and called it 2014
- on mac in the photo app WITHIN THE SYSTEM LIBRARY (the one with iCloud photo library enabled)i deleted all photos and videos, so that Marty iCloud photo library become empty and all photos and videos on iPhone and iPad has been automatically erased as well...
- voilà! i ended un with completely empty iCloud photo library everywhere so that i can start repopulating taking new photos.
Marty old photos and vids are safe on Marty mac in the 2014 library that i can open when i need them, but in this way i can keep Marty devices libraries pretty small (consider that i had almost 20000 photos...)
Please let me know if someone considerers this "workaround" useful and also if u think Apple intended to Be used this way....
Paolo

léonie,
thanks for you reply.
léonie wrote:
Did you perhaps try to turn off iCloud Photo Library (Beta) ?
iCloud Beta was off and when I flipped the slider to turn it on, the warning came up (and I slid it back to the off position)
léonie wrote:
When you turn on iCloud Photo Library (Beta) on an iOS device, the photos from the Camara roll will be moved to iCloud and only optimized versions will be kept locally, if you enable "Optimize Storage".
The camera roll on the iPad Air is empty...so I guess this is not an issue.
léonie wrote:
If there are synced photos on your device, they will be removed, however, but not from other devices.
They are all synced photos from her MBA and iPhone...the key thing is that they not be removed from the "other" devices.
She really uses the iPad for reading books, playing bridge and some email.
The iCloud for iPhoto would be nice because, as I understand it, she can view the photos without having a physical copy on her storage.

ICloud photo library and iPhone/iPad storage space

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