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The Definitive Guide to iCloud Photos (2020 update) - AppleToolBox
If you’re an Apple user, you probably have heard of iCloud Photos. While some users know quite a bit about iCloud Photos, others find themselves confused about certain features. Or even confused about what it really does.
With that in mind, here’s everything you need to know about iCloud Photos and how to use it.
We have also included a video at the end that highlights 15 common iCloud tips and tricks.
Basically, iCloud Photos is a free platform that automatically syncs all of your images, videos, and other media across all of your Apple (and even non-Apple) devices.
You can access this media across those devices whenever you want. But it gets a bit deeper than that, and some parts of iCloud Photos warrant explaining.
For example, one handy feature of iCloud Photos is that it automatically synchronizes edits across your devices. Tweak a photo on your iPhone, and you’ll be able to see those edits on your iPad — all because those images live in the cloud.
The feature can also help you save space on your devices by offloading the original images.
That means you won’t have to settle for lower-quality, optimized pictures and you won’t have to delete anything when you run low on storage. (We’ll get to this more specifically later on.)
iCloud Photos vs. My Photo Stream
One point of confusion when it comes to Apple photo storage is the difference (and similarities) between iCloud Photos and My Photo Stream.
There are some differences when it comes to the two, but they basically boil down to this: iCloud Photos is a cloud-based platform, while My Photo Stream isn’t.
Basically, My Photo Stream just sends images you take on one device to your other devices with the feature enabled.
The edits you make to specific photos won’t sync, and you’ll need to delete each image on each device manually. It also downloads images to certain devices in a smaller resolution than you captured them.
On the other hand, using My Photo Stream doesn’t use up any iCloud storage.
When compared to each other, My Photo Stream is a more straightforward service that lacks the feature set of iCloud Photos. Unless you have a good reason not to, we recommend choosing iCloud Photos over My Photo Stream.
Enabling and Disabling iCloud Photos
Note: Before you begin, you’ll want to make sure that iCloud is set up on all of your devices. Also, all of your devices will need to be signed into the same Apple ID.
On iOS devices running iOS 10.3 or later, open the Settings app. Tap on the Apple ID card —> iCloud > Photos. Then, toggle iCloud Photos.
On Mac devices running OS X 10.10.3 through macOS Mojave 10.14, open System Preferences. Click on iCloud, then click on Options next to the Photos icon. Finally, toggle iCloud Photos.
For macOS Catalina 10.15 and above, open System Preferences, tap Apple ID and tick the box for Photos
On Apple TV 4K and Apple TV with tvOS 9.2 or later, go to Settings —> Accounts —> iCloud —> iCloud Photos.
It’s worth noting that you can’t activate iCloud Photos from the iCloud browser site.
But, once you activate iCloud Photos on one of the devices mentioned above, you should be able to access your media library from the iCloud.com.
How Can I Access iCloud Photos?
While iCloud Photos is a native Apple platform, you can actually access media content stored on it on a variety of different devices. Here’s how.
On Apple Devices
Apple makes accessing iCloud Photos extremely painless on its own first-party devices.
On iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Mac, all you need to do is open the Photos app. Your iCloud Photos will be synced to your device automatically (as long as you have the feature enabled). You can also access iCloud Photos content on your Apple TV by going to the Photos app.
On Windows PC
Luckily for iPhone and iPad owners who also use Windows computers, Apple has made it reasonably easy to access your iCloud Photo Library from any PC.
All you need to do is download iCloud for Windows. Once you set it up, iCloud Photos will appear as a folder in Explorer.
It’ll be further broken down into three categories: Downloads, Uploads, and Shared.
Downloads are the pictures that you have on
The Uploads folder can be used to upload images to the iCloud Photos Library from your Windows PC. Very handy.
The Shared folder is simply a way to access any Shared Photo Album that you have access to.
Alternatively, you can access your iCloud Photo Library from any browser by going to iCloud.com.
On Android
Unfortunately, there’s not a clear way to access iCloud content on an Android device. With that being said, there are a couple of workarounds you can try.
For one, you can simply attempt to access the iCloud.com site on Google Chrome (the default browser form out Android platforms). Be sure to tap on the menu button and select the Desktop site.
This will only give you limited access to your media, however. If you’d like more expanded capabilities, you may want to consider a third-party app solution like iCloud for Android Assistant.
Are iCloud Photos Optimized?
There can be a bit of confusion when it comes to iCloud Photos and image optimization. So we’ll set the record straight.
Every image or video you take is stored in iCloud exactly how you took them. That means they’ll be in their original format at full resolution — no optimization.
On the other hand, there’s an Optimize Storage option in Settings —> Photos. That’s the confusing part, but it’s easy to “get” once you understand.
Optimize Storage only affects images stored on your device. More than that, your iPhone will only optimize storage when you’re running low. It also starts optimization with the images and photos that you access the least.
Even with Optimize Storage enabled, the originals in iCloud Photos are not affected and will be stored in their original resolution and quality.
You can still download the original photos and videos over the internet when you want to access them.
But what about the Download Originals setting? Well, if you enable it, iCloud Photos will then store the original images both in the cloud and on your device.
Photos on macOS and Optimize Storage
iCloud Photos 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.
This is important to keep in mind if you plan on using your MacBook storage to save your original Photos.
How to Download Originals
As we alluded to, you can still access and download the original copies of your photos on iCloud.com, iOS or Mac.
On iOS and Mac, this mostly comes in handy when you’ll like to share original media to another device. That’s because Photos automatically shows you iCloud Photos images on those platforms when it’s enabled.
Go to iCloud.com and click on Photos. Select the images and videos you’d like to download. Then, click and hold the cloud download icon in the upper-right corner of the window.
To select all your photos, use Control+A
To select specific photos at once, use Control+Click or Shift+click
Once you select your photos from iCloud’s website Photos app, tap the download icon (cloud with downwards arrow)
iCloud then creates a zip file and downloads that to your Mac
On iOS, open Photos. Select the images and videos you’d like to download. Tap the Share icon and select the device you’d like to share the images with.
On Mac, open Photos. Select the images and videos you’d like to download. Drag the content directly to your desktop. Alternatively, you can right-click and select Share > AirDrop.
How to Select Multiple Images
Is there a way to “select all” when you’re trying to download iCloud images? Yes & No.
The Yes is for Macs and Windows users
Using your keyboard, you can choose to select all your photos with Control+A and then press the download button. Photos are collected and places in a zip file for you to open on your computer.
You can also use Control+Click or Shift+Click to choose only certain photos to download at the same time.
The No is for iPhones, iPads, and iPods using iCloud in a browser
Unfortunately, for iDevices using iCloud in a browser, you’ll need to tap or click on each image to select it individually. It’s still a tedious process. If the iCloud website has a downside, it’s this–, especially for iOS.
You can speed this process along by tapping and dragging across multiple photos very quickly.
The one workaround that folks use on their iPhone to select Multiple photos to delete is to use a third-party app on your iPhone that facilitates the selection of multiple photos.
The iPhone app is called hashphotos. It’s a photo manager app and lets you select all. After you select all, you can delete and the pictures will get deleted from iCloud. This is one way via which users are able to delete a large number of photos from their iCloud without having to select one by one.
The other workaround that we use is to download all the photos to your MacBook as originals. Once they are downloaded, you can select multiple photos, search through them using spotlight et al and take other actions. (More on this in the backup section below).
How to Delete Photos from iCloud
Luckily, deleting images from iCloud Photos isn’t hard — at least, not in most versions of iOS. As long as you’ve enabled iCloud Photos on your devices, it’s a one-step process.
Just go to your Photos app, select an image or video, and delete it. That photo or video will be automatically removed from iCloud Photos.
On the flip side, you won’t be able to delete media from iCloud Photos on your devices that don’t have the feature enabled.
How to Recover a Deleted iCloud Photo
If you’re using iCloud Photos on your iOS or macOS device, you can recover images from the Recently Deleted folder within 30 days of deletion.
Alternatively, you can also go to iCloud.com on any web browser. From there, just click on Photos and Recently Deleted album. Then select a photo and click on Recover.
In the browser version of iCloud, you can recover media within 40 days of its original deletion.
What About iCloud Photo Sharing?
Previously, iCloud Photo Library and iCloud Photo Sharing were two separate-but-related cloud-based services.
If you’re using an older version of iOS, you may even notice that iCloud Photo Sharing had its own toggle in the Settings app.
The service changed in macOS Mojave+, iOS 12+, and iPadOS and is now called Shared Albums.
There is still a toggle for Shared Albums in iOS and iPadOS, Settings —> iCloud — > Photos
For macOS Mojave and lower, find the shared album setting in Apple Menu > System Preferences > iCloud > Photos > Options > Shared Albums
For macOS Catalina+, find the Shared Albums setting in Photo app preferences. Open Photos, go to the top Photos menu > Preferences > iCloud > Shared Albums
Essentially, a Shared Album is a cloud-based photo album that you (and others) can upload content to. Everyone on the Shared Album can view content, comment or like, and save and upload their own media.
You can create a Shared Album by tapping the + icon in the Albums tab in Photos. It’ll walk you through the rest of the process.
A Few Additional Tips
First off, you may be wondering where your Camera Roll went. Well, for better or worse, the iCloud-based All Photos album automatically replaces the Camera Roll when iCloud Photos is enabled.
This doesn’t affect much, however. The All Photos album still functions like a Camera Roll, but those images are automatically sent to the cloud.
Which is another thing work noting: iCloud works in the background automatically. Once you take an image or video, that piece of media will be uploaded to iCloud without any input.
As we previously mentioned, any edits will also be saved automatically. Similarly, any media you delete from one device will be removed from your iCloud Library.
These images are also not duplicated in your backups, so you don’t have to worry about your pictures and videos bumping up your backup size.
Also, depending on your circumstances, it may take some time for your media actually to upload to iCloud. You can check the status by going to Photos on your respective device.
macOS Storage and iCloud Photos
There are two Primary Options when it comes to using iCloud photos on your MacBook and these are
Keep Photos Library on Your Internal Drive BUT choose “Optimize Mac Storage” in Photos – this ensures you always have access to your library but when the drive gets full it will keep thumbnails of the photo but remove the original photo from your drive freeing up space
Move Photos Library to an external drive – this would allow you to “Download Originals to this Mac” and therefore the photo is available with or without an internet connection. This is helpful if you are in an area with a spotty or slow internet connection and need access to your Photos
How To Back Up your iCloud Photo Library
Why worry about backing up your iCloud photo library when Apple automatically does it for you on its iCloud platform?
Well, It is never a bad idea to have multiple backups just in case something goes wrong with the iCloud photos or you lose your Apple ID. Redundancy is a good idea when it comes to preserving your precious moments.
The external backing up your iCloud Photo Library can be achieved using a Mac.
Open up the Photos App on your Mac and choose Photos > Preferences from the top menu
Enable ‘Download Originals to this Mac’ under iCloud Photos library
This option makes sure that your original photos are stored in your MacBook as a copy
If you regularly back up your Mac /MacBook using Time Machine, you don’t have to do anything since the original photos will now be automatically backed up.
These downloaded originals are available in the Picture folder on your MacBook. You can see the location of this folder in your Photos App Preferences.
You can access the Picture Folders in the Finder >Home > Pictures for your user account. This allows you to download all the pictures to an external hard drive if you choose
In iOS 12.1+, there is also another location on your iPhone settings that provides additional guidance.
When you tap on Settings > Photos and scroll down to the bottom, explore the section called ‘TRANSFER TO MAC OR PC’. Here you have the option to set it up to transfer originals or transfer the photos in a compatible format.
Troubleshooting Common iCloud Photos Problems
While iCloud can be a bit confusing, it’s actually a relatively simple system to use once you understand it.
But, of course, you may run into some issues when using the platform. Here’s how to troubleshoot some of the more common iCloud Photos problems.
iCloud Photos Aren’t Syncing, How To Fix
iCloud is a pretty reliable system, and Apple designed it to work in the background without any input on your end.
On the other hand, there may be scenarios in which your iCloud content isn’t syncing or showing up on other devices.
In the vast majority of these cases, it’s likely that they just haven’t uploaded to the cloud yet. How fast the upload process depends on your cellular or internet connection.
If it’s taking a while, you can see a progress bar by opening the Photos app and navigating to the Library in Moments. There should be an upload status bar at the bottom of this menu.
On Mac, images or videos that iCloud has yet to upload to the cloud are stored in a smart album.
iCloud Photos Not Syncing with MacBook
One way to handle this issue on your MacBook is by using the smart albums. This is usually true when you find that you have many photos on your MacBook that are not in iCloud for some reason. Follow the steps below and see if it resolves the sync issues on your Mac.
Open Photos App on your Mac and click on File > New Smart Album
Use the condition ‘Photos is Unable to Upload into iCloud’
If you see any photos return in the results of the above condition, make sure that you have originals of these photos and delete them from your library.
Restart Photos App and check if it starts uploading the photos into iCloud
iCloud Photos is Using a Lot of Cellular Data
If iCloud Photos is eating up your cellular data on an iOS device, you can adjust a couple of settings to compensate for it.
Firstly, you can go to Settings —> Photos and tap on Cellular Data. There are two toggles here.
Flipping on Cellular Data will allow for recent media uploads to the cloud over cellular data, but will “prefer” uploading Wi-Fi uploads.
Flipping on Unlimited Updates means that your device will always sync photos on cellular data.
To save your cellular data, disable both those options.
You can also pause a single day’s upload in Photos > Moments. Just press Pause, which is near the upload status bar.
iCloud Says I’m Running Out of Storage
While it’s a cloud-based platform, iCloud Photos still has a finite amount of storage. Basically, you can use the storage that you pay for.
You automatically get 5 gigabytes of iCloud storage for free just for having an iCloud account.
If you need a bit more space, you can buy it for a set monthly fee. For example, 50GB starts at 99 cents. You can choose up to 2TB of extra storage.
macOS Mojave+ iCloud Photos Error with APFS Volume
Recently users that upgraded to macOS Mojave or higher and had APFS Encryption turned on, found a weird error when working with their iCloud Photos.
The error suggests that iCloud Photos is not compatible with APFS formatted volumes. If you find yourself with this error after upgrading to macOS Mojave, just restart your MacBook and this problem goes away.
Can I Turn Off iCloud Photos on a Single Device?
Sometimes, you may not want images or videos to automatically upload to the cloud from one particular device. Or you just may not want your iCloud content available on your Apple TV.
Luckily, you can switch iCloud off on individual Apple products. Here’s how.
On iOS devices running iOS 10.3 or later, open the Settings app. Tap on the Apple ID card —> iCloud > Photos. Then, toggle iCloud Photos off.
On Mac devices running OS X 10.10.3 through macOS Mojave, open System Preferences. Click on iCloud, then click on Options next to the Photos icon. Finally, toggle iCloud Photos off.
For macOS Catalina+, go to System Preferences > Apple ID > and untick Photos
On Apple TV 4K and Apple TV with tvOS 9.2 or later, go to Settings —> Accounts —> iCloud —> iCloud Photos. Toggle iCloud Photos off.
Can I Delete All iCloud Photos Content?
If you’d like to delete content from iCloud Photos, Apple gives you the option to deactivate the feature.
On iOS, go to Settings—> Apple ID card—> iCloud—> Manage Storage—> Photos. Tap on Disable and Delete.
On Mac, go to Apple menu —> System Preferences —> iCloud. Click on Manage and then select iCloud Photos and Disable and Delete.
For macOS Catalina+, go to System Preferences > Apple ID > and untick Photos
We hope that you found this comprehensive guide on iCloud Photos useful and informative. As always, we encourage you to share your comments, questions, or your favorite tips with our readers.
Want More? Take a Look at Our iCloud Top 15 Tips Video!
Mike is a freelance journalist from San Diego, California.
While he primarily covers Apple and consumer technology, he has past experience writing about public safety, local government, and education for a variety of publications.
He’s worn quite a few hats in the journalism field, including writer, editor, and news designer.
While on vacation I took a few hundred photos with my iPhone, and put them in a separate folder. Now they are gone, just gone from all devices. They were not deleted, and iCloud is not full. The only ones I have now are what I messaged to someone or shared on Facebook. Where did the photos go, and how do I get them back?
You admit that there are various problems, glitches, and ‘hard to understand but resolvable’ processes affecting Apple Photos programme, all to do with transference and storage in and from Apple iPhone and iCloud.
This may explain why my own photo collection has grown from a reasonable 2.5 thousand pictures, to an incredible 12.7 thousand. Most are copies, from which the programme has mysteriously produced portrait shots and reverse angle shots. All done without any input from me!
Ten years worth of holiday albums are now thoroughly jumbled, and afaik there is no safe program that will safely remove all the unwanted photos.
I gather that a big part of the problem is transferring pictures from one source to another, because a backup file is always made, and then (somehow!) added to the originals.
What I have done may be radical, but at least I feel more in control again.
I have disconnected from any form of ‘Cloud storage’, including Apple’s own version. I don’t have, or want a smart phone. I have only ever used a digital camera for taking photos and then transfer to the Mac, and then edit at my leisure.
It’s going to be a pain sorting through 12,000 photos and deleting copies etc. But the lesson I am learning is don’t trust anything you have no real control over – and that includes Cloud Storage!
I have created a new system library in Photos on my iMac which I would like to take over as the system library on my iphone and ipad. However I cannot get it across despite it being clearly greyed out as the System Library and toggling the icloud photos button on and off on all devices Any advice please? My ipad and iphone are both showing the same library which I can’t see on my iMac and I want to delete this one. Thanks.
My photos in icloud are the same optimized low res files as on my iphone. Isn’t the point of icloud supposed to be that the original file size is preserved so that it doesnt have to be stored full size on the iphone?
I got a new computer. The tech moved all programs & info to my new computer. Previously my old iCloud Download file only had the most current pictures because I have a Toshiba offsite storage that I organize my picture folders on. Now I have lots of pictures in my iCloud Download folder & can’t even sort by date or send to another folder to get rid of them. I’ve tried to send—nothing happens—just sits there. I don’t want to delete all them because there are some I want to keep. Please help me get organized again after I got my new computer! Thank you
Hi.
Finally I have organized all my photos in my mac library in albums, I also download the photos that were in the cloud as right now I have the icloud photos on in my phone. Now, can I delete all the photos from the I cloud, and upload the albums I created in my library into to the cloud?
Is it ok if after I do that I turn off the Icloud photos in my Iphone so the next photos I take with it I can upload them in to my mac, make the albums and then upload the albums in the cloud?
I hope it is no so confusing .
Thank you
I often give names to my photos in iCloud, then download them to my Mac in batches. This works but I have two minor problems…
First, I find it quite hard to select the name field under each photo in iCloud; I have to click around repeatedly just to get a blinking cursor in that field, and sometimes I accidentally click the photo itself, which causes it to open in the browser tab, which is not what I intended. Is there an easier way to select the name field under the photo?
The second issue is that, after I’ve gone to all the work of naming the photos in iCloud, the zip file created on my Mac (when I download a batch) doesn’t include those names — just generic filenames like “IMG_0084.JPG”.
Is there any way to download the photos with my custom filenames intact? Thanks.
I just got a new iPhone 12 Pro with 128gb. On my old phone (iPhone 10x , I had 256GB of storage). I had optimize turned on and the space my 35000 photos took up was about 7GB on my iPhoneX. I used QuickStart to transfer everything over to my new phone. On my new phone, optimize is also checked but when I look in the Storage Space , it says my photos are using 59GB. Directly underneath the storage bar, it says Review Large Attachments, and under that it Says ICloud photos 9% like it it is uploading all the photos to iCloud. Once they have all been uploaded, will they suddenly optimize and drop to the 7GB I had on my iPhoneX? (I hope so). For the new phone at the moment, it says it is using 117.5GB of the total 128. In fact it got up to 123GB and then told me I was out of space. So I offloaded some apps and got it down to 117GB and it dropped that warning. On my old iPhone with everything loaded it was using about 68GB of the 256 available. Anyone have any thoughts on this?
Hi, and thank you for a great guide.
One question remained unanswered – even after optimizing, Photos are taking a lot of storage on my iPhone (I have 70K pictures and videos). I want to be able to save all my photos safely, have an automatic upload to iCloud of new photos I take on my iPhone. To my understanding, if I delete photos from Photos app, it is deleted everywhere.
My question is how do I “empty” the Photos app, while saving the original pictures safely on my mac + iCloud folder?
I am having trouble with my new MacBook Pro accessing my photo library through Final Cut Pro X…..it appears that there is some kind of conflict between FCP X and iCloud?…..when I download photos directly to my Photos, FCP seems to see them in the browser….but not if they’re in Photos through iCloud…..is there a way around cutting off iCloud to my MacBook and simply downloading all the originals in order to have FCP X access them in its browser?
Hii!!
I want to enable iCloud to get more free space on my mac and my phone because both is getting at it’s limits. However, I don’t essentially want them to SYNC. I enjoy having my work photos on my mac and my private ones separately on my phone. Is there maybe a solution to this problem that I haven’t thought of yet?
Hi Isabell! I stumbled on this website looking for an answer to the exact same question? Crazy, because it seems like it would be such a common request and an obvious feature/option for Apple to have included/considered. Wondering if you’ve found an answer or a workaround since posting this back in September? Thanks!
When I try to turn on Album Sharing through Photos -> Preferences -> iCloud
I get “iCloud features for Photos are only available in the System Photo Library [Learn More]
I can locate my System Photo Library (which Photos is using) on Finder, but cannot change anything there
I want to upload 1TB of vacation photos to iCloud Drive. I have the 2TB storage account. I want to keep them organized in folders. So, I cannot use Photos in iCloud, correct?
I have tried moving a folder from an external hard drive to iCloud Drive. It worked, but was very slow and it copied to my hard drive on my Windows 10 laptop, when I am signed into iCloud for Windows app.
That is OK because I can delete them from my hard drive after the copy to iCloud Drive.
Question – when signed into iCloud for Windows, I thought I read where it downloads automatically to the PC to keep things synced. I do not want iCloud for Windows downloading to my PC automatically.
If this is true, is the fastest way to upload from external hard drive to my PC is via iCloud.com, and not signing into iCloud for Windows at all?
I take about 100 pics a day on my iPhone. would like to get them to my iMac or iCloud and then delete them from my phone. Can I do that without deleting them from my iMac or iCloud also?
Yes, you are correct. Once your iCloud Storage is full, Apple can no longer upload any new photos, video, or any other data including iCloud text messages to your account until you increase storage or clean out your current iCloud storage.
When you run out of iCloud storage, your device you also can’t send or receive emails with your iCloud email address.
So it’s pretty important to either clean out your iCloud storage or purchase more–we recommend upgrading to at least the 50GB plan which currently costs $.99. USD/month. If you are part of family sharing, you can also share 200 GB for $2.99/month–and all family members can use that storage so it’s generally cheaper than individual storage paid plan.
You can select multiple pictures to download at once when using iCloud Photos in a web browser. Ctr-A selects all. Ctr-Click and Shift-click both work. When you then click the download icon, all of the selected photos will be put in a zip file and downloaded.
For macOS Catalina+, find the Shared Albums setting in Photo app preferences. Open Photos, go to the top Photos menu > Preferences > iCloud > Shared Albums
Hi there, I have ~17,000 photos on my MacBook Pro 2015, and only ~16,000 of those photos have uploaded to iCloud.
There is ~1,000 photos left to upload to iCloud and it has been stuck at this number for about 12 hours now.
I have upgraded my iCloud storage to 200GB and only 28.4GB are being taken up by photos and videos.
I have quit the app, restarted my computer, connected to my phones personal hot spot to see if it was an internet issue… still, nothing has been resolved.
I need to ship out my laptop for screen repairs and I cannot send it without backing it up just in case they need to erase my computer.
This is likely a temporary issue on Apple’s side rather than your Mac. If those photos continue to not upload, try resuming the process overnight–just make sure you don’t place your Mac to sleep.
Are you and your wife part of a family sharing plan? When you set up a family account, Apple creates a shared album in the Photos app and this automatically syncs across all family members’ devices.
You would need to move all the photos into this shared album but once done, they would be there. Then as you take new photos, you would need to move them to the shared album. There isn’t a way (yet) to automatically route new photos to the Family Shared Album.
For Contacts sharing, if you also have a Mac in your household and enable Contacts in iCloud on the Mac and your iPhone, you can add both Apple IDs to System Preferences > Internet Accounts, and then enable Contacts for both Apple IDs. Once enabled, open the Contacts app on your Mac and you should see each Apple ID. Then, copy contacts from the added Apple ID to the main (system signed in) Apple ID. Since you turned on iCloud Contact syncing, any added contacts should also update on any other device signed in with that same Apple ID.
For Reminders, you can share these individually by tapping the More button, then tap Add People.
Enter your wife’s Apple ID (or vice-versa), then tap Add. There is no automatic way to sync reminder across different Apple IDs.
With family sharing, you can also share an iCloud storage 200GB or 2TB plan so you don’t need separate plans per person.
Thank you for your reply Elizabeth. Unfortunately, I don’t think your solution of using the shared photos album would work for us and our 40,000 photos because I found this on the Apple shared album support page:
“Maximum combined number of photos and videos from all contributors in any one shared album: 5000”
So we’d have to break up our photos into an entirely different set of shared albums to accommodate the 5,000 photo limit. Plus the convenience of having all new photos taken on any of our iOS devices automatically uploaded to the same photos album is a feature we wouldn’t want to give up. Avoids the manual step of uploading new photos every time which would sometimes be missed and eventually make our photos way out of sync between devices.
Your contacts solution is a clever one that I was not aware of, will give it a test.
For us, photos, contacts, and reminders are all equally important apps to have synced between different AppleIDs, so we’ll have to stay with our clunky workaround until Apple allows syncing between AppleIDs for all three. Thanks!
Assuming you use iCloud Photos Library, we suggest you choose the option to Optimize Storage instead of deleting items. Go to Photos app > Preferences > iCloud > and under iCloud Photos, tick the box for Optimize Storage.
With optimize turned on when your Mac is running low on space, it removes full resolution versions from the Mac and keeps them on iCloud only.
If you do not want to use this setting or finding it is not sufficient for your needs, you will need to disable iCloud Photos before deleting any items from your Mac.
To do this, open the Photos app on your Mac, tap Preferences > iCloud and toggle off iCloud Photos. You’ll see a message that when you turn off iCloud Photos, any photos and videos that are not downloaded to your Mac are removed–but still available on iCloud and on any other devices.
Once iCloud Photos is off, it no longer syncs to your Mac so any new photos from other devices will not sync to your Mac automatically.
So there is really no visual way to tell once the photos have actually been uploaded to iCloud (other than either looking at the file size or looking at the side of your iCloud and Local drive by side)?
The reason I ask is that I have nearly a terabyte of data that I need to upload…..which is going to take forever.
So it would be nice to know when everything has finally made it to the cloud.
(I’m in the process of getting my digital life in order, so moving things off of other drives temporarily onto iCloud so I can do a nice clean backup to my NAS drives once all is said and done.)
We have the majority of our family photos on my husbands Apple ID as that was used for our main IMac. I now have an Apple ID and we have recently started using the iCloud to store our photos as they were taking up too much room on our hard drive. We have activated Family Sharing but our new photos taken on our different devices aren’t all appearing together on any of them.
Any suggestions? We are already disappointed that our documents aren’t directly available across all devices with Family Sharing. This seems like another disappointment if we can’t get easy access to each other’s photos. Thx very much Claire
even with a family sharing plan, photos are not automatically added and shared to everyone–this is meant to protect each person’s privacy so they are only sharing what they choose to share with family.
The good news is that’s is it super easy to share photos with your family! Apple automatically adds a family sharing album when you signed up for or accept a family sharing plan.
To find it, go to Photos App > Albums tab (at the bottom) > and choose Shared Albums. You’ll find an album there named Family–that is your shared album.
To add photos, each person can open their Photos App, tap the image they want shared, and choose the share button. Then select the option in the list to Add to Shared Album and select Family.
Sorry if the instructions for Windows aren’t up to snuff!
Please open the iCloud app (search for it) and run it as admin.
Once the iCloud app opens, tap the Options button next to Photos.
This should open a window with all your iCloud photo options, including where your iCloud photos automatically download to. Tap change to alter the location.
Make sure you check the box for iCloud Photo Library, Download new photos and videos to my PC, Upload new photos and videos from my iPhone, and if desired the boxes for My Photo Stream and iCloud Photo Sharing.
I am running low on iCloud storage space (195GB out of 200GB), and iCloud Photos is taking a lot of space. I disabled iCloud Photos and I got this email:
—–
iCloud Photos has been disabled on all your devices and new photos and videos are no longer uploading to iCloud.
There are currently 14099 photos and 456 videos in your iCloud Photos
Original format, full resolution versions of your photos and videos are not stored on your devices. You must download your full resolution photos and videos to at least one device before they are deleted from iCloud Photos in 30 days.
—-
Will the photos in my devices be also deleted after 30days?
If you download the full resolution of all those iCloud stored photos and videos to your devices, Mac, or Windows PC and then make sure that iCloud Photos is toggled off on all those same devices, then your photos and videos should not delete after 30 days.
For thepPhotos and videos that are stored in your account for those 30 days, download them to your iOS devices by going to Settings > Apple ID Profile > iCloud > Photos and select Download and Keep Originals.
For your Mac, open Photos, choose Photos > Preferences, then select Download Originals to this Mac
For Windows PC, open iCloud for Windows Settings and nex tot Photos, select options, then choose Download photos and videos to my PC.
If iCloud Photos remains on on ANY device after those 30 days, then yes, those photos will be deleted after those 30 days expires.
Thanks for the great question. It doesn’t matter which device you turn on iCloud Photo Library first.
And you could turn them on at the same time if your WiFi is sufficiently fast.
If you are concerned with your WiFi speed, then it does makes sense to toggle one device’s iCloud Photo Library on and wait for all photos to upload to iCloud before turning on iCloud Photo Library on the other device.
Before you start, make sure your iCloud Plan has sufficient storage for all your photos–that usually means you have a paid plan of either 50 GB, 200GB, or 1 TB.
To check your iCloud storage plan:
On your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch: Tap Settings > Apple ID Profile > iCloud
On your Mac: Choose Apple menu > System Preferences > iCloud > Manage
Before you begin syncing with iCloud Photo Library, also decide if you want iCloud or your devices to keep your full-resolution photos.
Good luck and keep us posted on how this process goes.
Ty, helpful! Will ask question below.
While on vacation I took a few hundred photos with my iPhone, and put them in a separate folder. Now they are gone, just gone from all devices. They were not deleted, and iCloud is not full. The only ones I have now are what I messaged to someone or shared on Facebook. Where did the photos go, and how do I get them back?
You admit that there are various problems, glitches, and ‘hard to understand but resolvable’ processes affecting Apple Photos programme, all to do with transference and storage in and from Apple iPhone and iCloud.
This may explain why my own photo collection has grown from a reasonable 2.5 thousand pictures, to an incredible 12.7 thousand. Most are copies, from which the programme has mysteriously produced portrait shots and reverse angle shots. All done without any input from me!
Ten years worth of holiday albums are now thoroughly jumbled, and afaik there is no safe program that will safely remove all the unwanted photos.
I gather that a big part of the problem is transferring pictures from one source to another, because a backup file is always made, and then (somehow!) added to the originals.
What I have done may be radical, but at least I feel more in control again.
I have disconnected from any form of ‘Cloud storage’, including Apple’s own version. I don’t have, or want a smart phone. I have only ever used a digital camera for taking photos and then transfer to the Mac, and then edit at my leisure.
It’s going to be a pain sorting through 12,000 photos and deleting copies etc. But the lesson I am learning is don’t trust anything you have no real control over – and that includes Cloud Storage!
Can i pick and choose which images and videos back up to icloud?
I have created a new system library in Photos on my iMac which I would like to take over as the system library on my iphone and ipad. However I cannot get it across despite it being clearly greyed out as the System Library and toggling the icloud photos button on and off on all devices Any advice please? My ipad and iphone are both showing the same library which I can’t see on my iMac and I want to delete this one. Thanks.
My photos in icloud are the same optimized low res files as on my iphone. Isn’t the point of icloud supposed to be that the original file size is preserved so that it doesnt have to be stored full size on the iphone?
I got a new computer. The tech moved all programs & info to my new computer. Previously my old iCloud Download file only had the most current pictures because I have a Toshiba offsite storage that I organize my picture folders on. Now I have lots of pictures in my iCloud Download folder & can’t even sort by date or send to another folder to get rid of them. I’ve tried to send—nothing happens—just sits there. I don’t want to delete all them because there are some I want to keep. Please help me get organized again after I got my new computer! Thank you
Hi.
Finally I have organized all my photos in my mac library in albums, I also download the photos that were in the cloud as right now I have the icloud photos on in my phone. Now, can I delete all the photos from the I cloud, and upload the albums I created in my library into to the cloud?
Is it ok if after I do that I turn off the Icloud photos in my Iphone so the next photos I take with it I can upload them in to my mac, make the albums and then upload the albums in the cloud?
I hope it is no so confusing .
Thank you
I often give names to my photos in iCloud, then download them to my Mac in batches. This works but I have two minor problems…
First, I find it quite hard to select the name field under each photo in iCloud; I have to click around repeatedly just to get a blinking cursor in that field, and sometimes I accidentally click the photo itself, which causes it to open in the browser tab, which is not what I intended. Is there an easier way to select the name field under the photo?
The second issue is that, after I’ve gone to all the work of naming the photos in iCloud, the zip file created on my Mac (when I download a batch) doesn’t include those names — just generic filenames like “IMG_0084.JPG”.
Is there any way to download the photos with my custom filenames intact? Thanks.
I just got a new iPhone 12 Pro with 128gb. On my old phone (iPhone 10x , I had 256GB of storage). I had optimize turned on and the space my 35000 photos took up was about 7GB on my iPhoneX. I used QuickStart to transfer everything over to my new phone. On my new phone, optimize is also checked but when I look in the Storage Space , it says my photos are using 59GB. Directly underneath the storage bar, it says Review Large Attachments, and under that it Says ICloud photos 9% like it it is uploading all the photos to iCloud. Once they have all been uploaded, will they suddenly optimize and drop to the 7GB I had on my iPhoneX? (I hope so). For the new phone at the moment, it says it is using 117.5GB of the total 128. In fact it got up to 123GB and then told me I was out of space. So I offloaded some apps and got it down to 117GB and it dropped that warning. On my old iPhone with everything loaded it was using about 68GB of the 256 available. Anyone have any thoughts on this?
Thanks!
Hi, and thank you for a great guide.
One question remained unanswered – even after optimizing, Photos are taking a lot of storage on my iPhone (I have 70K pictures and videos). I want to be able to save all my photos safely, have an automatic upload to iCloud of new photos I take on my iPhone. To my understanding, if I delete photos from Photos app, it is deleted everywhere.
My question is how do I “empty” the Photos app, while saving the original pictures safely on my mac + iCloud folder?
Using Catalina
want to use Photos / iCloud
tick photos
Checking Library emerging
never ending process
what to do ??
I am having trouble with my new MacBook Pro accessing my photo library through Final Cut Pro X…..it appears that there is some kind of conflict between FCP X and iCloud?…..when I download photos directly to my Photos, FCP seems to see them in the browser….but not if they’re in Photos through iCloud…..is there a way around cutting off iCloud to my MacBook and simply downloading all the originals in order to have FCP X access them in its browser?
Hii!!
I want to enable iCloud to get more free space on my mac and my phone because both is getting at it’s limits. However, I don’t essentially want them to SYNC. I enjoy having my work photos on my mac and my private ones separately on my phone. Is there maybe a solution to this problem that I haven’t thought of yet?
Hi Isabell! I stumbled on this website looking for an answer to the exact same question? Crazy, because it seems like it would be such a common request and an obvious feature/option for Apple to have included/considered. Wondering if you’ve found an answer or a workaround since posting this back in September? Thanks!
When I try to turn on Album Sharing through Photos -> Preferences -> iCloud
I get “iCloud features for Photos are only available in the System Photo Library [Learn More]
I can locate my System Photo Library (which Photos is using) on Finder, but cannot change anything there
I want to upload 1TB of vacation photos to iCloud Drive. I have the 2TB storage account. I want to keep them organized in folders. So, I cannot use Photos in iCloud, correct?
I have tried moving a folder from an external hard drive to iCloud Drive. It worked, but was very slow and it copied to my hard drive on my Windows 10 laptop, when I am signed into iCloud for Windows app.
That is OK because I can delete them from my hard drive after the copy to iCloud Drive.
Question – when signed into iCloud for Windows, I thought I read where it downloads automatically to the PC to keep things synced. I do not want iCloud for Windows downloading to my PC automatically.
If this is true, is the fastest way to upload from external hard drive to my PC is via iCloud.com, and not signing into iCloud for Windows at all?
If I restore my phone using an iCloud backup, will I lose access to my previous shared albums?
I take about 100 pics a day on my iPhone. would like to get them to my iMac or iCloud and then delete them from my phone. Can I do that without deleting them from my iMac or iCloud also?
The only way to share a photo in its original resolution is via AirDrop, even a Shared Album will automatically reduce the resolution, which sucks.
I have over 7,000 photos stored on my cloud. How can I search for a photo without having to scroll through several thousand photos?
Hi
If my iCloud storage is full, does that mean the photos will no longer sync between devices? Do I need to create space for the photos to sync again?
Thanks
Hi Heather,
Yes, you are correct. Once your iCloud Storage is full, Apple can no longer upload any new photos, video, or any other data including iCloud text messages to your account until you increase storage or clean out your current iCloud storage.
When you run out of iCloud storage, your device you also can’t send or receive emails with your iCloud email address.
So it’s pretty important to either clean out your iCloud storage or purchase more–we recommend upgrading to at least the 50GB plan which currently costs $.99. USD/month. If you are part of family sharing, you can also share 200 GB for $2.99/month–and all family members can use that storage so it’s generally cheaper than individual storage paid plan.
I hope that helps!
You can select multiple pictures to download at once when using iCloud Photos in a web browser. Ctr-A selects all. Ctr-Click and Shift-click both work. When you then click the download icon, all of the selected photos will be put in a zip file and downloaded.
Hi,
I cannot see any shared albums in Photos.
These are the instructions:
On your Mac, choose Apple menu > System Preferences. Select iCloud, click the Options button next to Photos and then select Shared Albums.
However, there is no ‘Options’ button next to ‘Photos’.
Can anybody help?
For macOS Catalina+, find the Shared Albums setting in Photo app preferences. Open Photos, go to the top Photos menu > Preferences > iCloud > Shared Albums
Hi,
Can anybody tell me how I can find out the size of each photo in my icloud photos library without having to download it?
I am trying to consolidate and organize my photos and free up some space on iCloud but want to ensure I am not deleting any high-res duplicates.
Thank you
Hi Shelley, I have exactly this question, did you get an answer ? I cannot find one anywhere.
Hi there, I have ~17,000 photos on my MacBook Pro 2015, and only ~16,000 of those photos have uploaded to iCloud.
There is ~1,000 photos left to upload to iCloud and it has been stuck at this number for about 12 hours now.
I have upgraded my iCloud storage to 200GB and only 28.4GB are being taken up by photos and videos.
I have quit the app, restarted my computer, connected to my phones personal hot spot to see if it was an internet issue… still, nothing has been resolved.
I need to ship out my laptop for screen repairs and I cannot send it without backing it up just in case they need to erase my computer.
Hi Amanda,
Yes, backing up is the right decision.
This is likely a temporary issue on Apple’s side rather than your Mac. If those photos continue to not upload, try resuming the process overnight–just make sure you don’t place your Mac to sleep.
We would like to share our iCloud photo library (all 40,000 photos) between my apple ID and my wife’s.
We also want to share contacts and reminders.
Our current workaround is to have my wife’s devices logged in with my appleID, but that presents other problems.
We keep hoping Apple will one day allow separate apple ID logins for photos and other services as they do for messages.
Until that happens, do you have a better workaround we could use?
We’d also like to avoid paying for more iCloud storage which we’d have to do if we duplicated our iCloud photos library.
Hi Jeffrey,
Yes, that would be nice!
Are you and your wife part of a family sharing plan? When you set up a family account, Apple creates a shared album in the Photos app and this automatically syncs across all family members’ devices.
You would need to move all the photos into this shared album but once done, they would be there. Then as you take new photos, you would need to move them to the shared album. There isn’t a way (yet) to automatically route new photos to the Family Shared Album.
For Contacts sharing, if you also have a Mac in your household and enable Contacts in iCloud on the Mac and your iPhone, you can add both Apple IDs to System Preferences > Internet Accounts, and then enable Contacts for both Apple IDs. Once enabled, open the Contacts app on your Mac and you should see each Apple ID. Then, copy contacts from the added Apple ID to the main (system signed in) Apple ID. Since you turned on iCloud Contact syncing, any added contacts should also update on any other device signed in with that same Apple ID.
For Reminders, you can share these individually by tapping the More button, then tap Add People.
Enter your wife’s Apple ID (or vice-versa), then tap Add. There is no automatic way to sync reminder across different Apple IDs.
With family sharing, you can also share an iCloud storage 200GB or 2TB plan so you don’t need separate plans per person.
Thank you for your reply Elizabeth. Unfortunately, I don’t think your solution of using the shared photos album would work for us and our 40,000 photos because I found this on the Apple shared album support page:
“Maximum combined number of photos and videos from all contributors in any one shared album: 5000”
So we’d have to break up our photos into an entirely different set of shared albums to accommodate the 5,000 photo limit. Plus the convenience of having all new photos taken on any of our iOS devices automatically uploaded to the same photos album is a feature we wouldn’t want to give up. Avoids the manual step of uploading new photos every time which would sometimes be missed and eventually make our photos way out of sync between devices.
Your contacts solution is a clever one that I was not aware of, will give it a test.
For us, photos, contacts, and reminders are all equally important apps to have synced between different AppleIDs, so we’ll have to stay with our clunky workaround until Apple allows syncing between AppleIDs for all three. Thanks!
In iCloud storage how do I instantly go to the first photos that are stored
How do I instantly go to the first photo stored
Is there an easy way to tell which photos in my photo library or elsewhere on my mac hard drive have been backed up to iCloud?
I want to be able to delete local copies to free up space on my hard drive once I know they have been uploaded.
Hi Jesse,
Assuming you use iCloud Photos Library, we suggest you choose the option to Optimize Storage instead of deleting items. Go to Photos app > Preferences > iCloud > and under iCloud Photos, tick the box for Optimize Storage.
With optimize turned on when your Mac is running low on space, it removes full resolution versions from the Mac and keeps them on iCloud only.
If you do not want to use this setting or finding it is not sufficient for your needs, you will need to disable iCloud Photos before deleting any items from your Mac.
To do this, open the Photos app on your Mac, tap Preferences > iCloud and toggle off iCloud Photos. You’ll see a message that when you turn off iCloud Photos, any photos and videos that are not downloaded to your Mac are removed–but still available on iCloud and on any other devices.
Once iCloud Photos is off, it no longer syncs to your Mac so any new photos from other devices will not sync to your Mac automatically.
Thanks.
So there is really no visual way to tell once the photos have actually been uploaded to iCloud (other than either looking at the file size or looking at the side of your iCloud and Local drive by side)?
The reason I ask is that I have nearly a terabyte of data that I need to upload…..which is going to take forever.
So it would be nice to know when everything has finally made it to the cloud.
(I’m in the process of getting my digital life in order, so moving things off of other drives temporarily onto iCloud so I can do a nice clean backup to my NAS drives once all is said and done.)
Can pictures on iCloud be transferred to a new iPhone ?
Hi Gee,
As long as your iPhone has sufficient space available for your photos, you should be able to get your iCloud Photos on your iPhone.
The easiest way is to use iCloud Photo Library. Go to Settings > Photos and toggle on iCloud Photos. Choose Download and Keep Originals.
If you want to pick and choose which iCloud Photos are downloaded to your device,
1) Go to iCloud’s website via Safari or another web browser app on your iPhone
2) Sign in with your Apple ID and password
3) Tap Photos and wait for iCloud’s Photos app to load
4) Manually select the photos you want to download to your device by tapping on the Select button and then selecting each photo
5) Once all the photos are selected, tap the three-dot button in the bottom corner
6) Choose Download or Add to album
Hi
We have the majority of our family photos on my husbands Apple ID as that was used for our main IMac. I now have an Apple ID and we have recently started using the iCloud to store our photos as they were taking up too much room on our hard drive. We have activated Family Sharing but our new photos taken on our different devices aren’t all appearing together on any of them.
Any suggestions? We are already disappointed that our documents aren’t directly available across all devices with Family Sharing. This seems like another disappointment if we can’t get easy access to each other’s photos. Thx very much Claire
Hi Claire,
even with a family sharing plan, photos are not automatically added and shared to everyone–this is meant to protect each person’s privacy so they are only sharing what they choose to share with family.
The good news is that’s is it super easy to share photos with your family! Apple automatically adds a family sharing album when you signed up for or accept a family sharing plan.
To find it, go to Photos App > Albums tab (at the bottom) > and choose Shared Albums. You’ll find an album there named Family–that is your shared album.
To add photos, each person can open their Photos App, tap the image they want shared, and choose the share button. Then select the option in the list to Add to Shared Album and select Family.
I’m using a Lenovo Yoga.
My iCloud photo download doesn’t appear in the download folder.
I don’t even see a choice as to where to send it.
I don’t know how to find the default selection.
I also don’t see Safari.
All the help I find is about Safari not Chrome.
Please advise.
Hi Dodi,
Sorry if the instructions for Windows aren’t up to snuff!
Please open the iCloud app (search for it) and run it as admin.
Once the iCloud app opens, tap the Options button next to Photos.
This should open a window with all your iCloud photo options, including where your iCloud photos automatically download to. Tap change to alter the location.
Make sure you check the box for iCloud Photo Library, Download new photos and videos to my PC, Upload new photos and videos from my iPhone, and if desired the boxes for My Photo Stream and iCloud Photo Sharing.
Hope that helps,
Liz
I am running low on iCloud storage space (195GB out of 200GB), and iCloud Photos is taking a lot of space. I disabled iCloud Photos and I got this email:
—–
iCloud Photos has been disabled on all your devices and new photos and videos are no longer uploading to iCloud.
There are currently 14099 photos and 456 videos in your iCloud Photos
Original format, full resolution versions of your photos and videos are not stored on your devices. You must download your full resolution photos and videos to at least one device before they are deleted from iCloud Photos in 30 days.
—-
Will the photos in my devices be also deleted after 30days?
Hi Andy,
If you download the full resolution of all those iCloud stored photos and videos to your devices, Mac, or Windows PC and then make sure that iCloud Photos is toggled off on all those same devices, then your photos and videos should not delete after 30 days.
For thepPhotos and videos that are stored in your account for those 30 days, download them to your iOS devices by going to Settings > Apple ID Profile > iCloud > Photos and select Download and Keep Originals.
For your Mac, open Photos, choose Photos > Preferences, then select Download Originals to this Mac
For Windows PC, open iCloud for Windows Settings and nex tot Photos, select options, then choose Download photos and videos to my PC.
If iCloud Photos remains on on ANY device after those 30 days, then yes, those photos will be deleted after those 30 days expires.
Lots of people (most people?) have many photos that are on both their iPhone and their Mac.
In some cases, the photos have been edited on the phone, sometimes on the Mac, sometimes on both.
Is there any strategy for which device to turn on iCloud Photo Library first?
Should I wait for the first upload to complete before switching the next device on?
Hi Richard,
Thanks for the great question. It doesn’t matter which device you turn on iCloud Photo Library first.
And you could turn them on at the same time if your WiFi is sufficiently fast.
If you are concerned with your WiFi speed, then it does makes sense to toggle one device’s iCloud Photo Library on and wait for all photos to upload to iCloud before turning on iCloud Photo Library on the other device.
Before you start, make sure your iCloud Plan has sufficient storage for all your photos–that usually means you have a paid plan of either 50 GB, 200GB, or 1 TB.
To check your iCloud storage plan:
On your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch: Tap Settings > Apple ID Profile > iCloud
On your Mac: Choose Apple menu > System Preferences > iCloud > Manage
Before you begin syncing with iCloud Photo Library, also decide if you want iCloud or your devices to keep your full-resolution photos.
Good luck and keep us posted on how this process goes.
Liz