HT204247: Manage your iCloud storage

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beautifulnz

Q: videos and photos into iCloud drive?

I would like to use iCloud like an external hard drive.
I want to keep my photos and videos in iCloud and delete them from my phone.
I understand that if I delete photos and videos from my iphone that the photos and videos will delete also from iCloud.
I now have a 1T storage plan because I can't afford to lose any photos or videos and now my MacBook Pro is also full.
Another thing is that my iphone cannot back up to the iCloud - this is from April 2015 and it has never worked since.
Any advice is much appreciated.
Cheers
Darren

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.4), 15" i7

Posted on Aug 4, 2016 10:41 PM

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Q: videos and photos into iCloud drive?

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  • Helpful answers

  • by Rysz,Helpful

    Rysz Rysz Aug 5, 2016 7:19 AM in response to beautifulnz
    Level 7 (20,202 points)
    iTunes
    Aug 5, 2016 7:19 AM in response to beautifulnz

    iCloud Photo Library is not designed as an external storage or backup service. It's designed as a syncing service to make all your images available on all your devices and sync all your edits to those devices.

     

    If you're running out of storage spac, set your Photos settings to keep only an Optimized local library. Photos library on your computer should, however, be at full resolution, so it acts as a backup to what's in iCloud. Buy an external hard drive if you need to.

     

    Photos User / Help guide:

    https://help.apple.com/photos/mac/1.0/?lang=en

     

    iMore has a very detailed, well illustrated article on iCloud Photo Library:

    http://www.imore.com/how-use-icloud-photo-library-ultimate-guide

  • by beautifulnz,

    beautifulnz beautifulnz Aug 5, 2016 7:25 AM in response to Rysz
    Level 1 (4 points)
    iCloud
    Aug 5, 2016 7:25 AM in response to Rysz

    Thank you very much Rysz, could I use iCloud Drive to keep some images?

     

    Although I have upgraded yesterday to a 1 TB iCloud plan I have received this message:

     

     

    "Your full-resolution photos and videos stored in iCloud will not fit on this Mac."

     

    The library on this Mac can be optimized to take up less space. All your full-resolution originals will be stored in iCloud and accessible in the Photos app. Time Machine will no longer back up all full-resolution originals.

     

    I have a number of external drives but have had bad experiences with some of them in that they have failed and data has been lost, so I have issues of externals backing up externals.

     

    Thanks for explaining the use of iCloud - I have been blissfully ignorant by the looks of it.

     

    Cheers
    Darren

  • by Winston Churchill,

    Winston Churchill Winston Churchill Aug 5, 2016 7:36 AM in response to beautifulnz
    Level 10 (103,361 points)
    Apple TV
    Aug 5, 2016 7:36 AM in response to beautifulnz

    I note you actually asked about iCloud Drive and not iCloud Photo Library. If you enable iCloud Drive on your Mac your files will take up as much space on your Mac as they do in the cloud since your Mac keeps its own copy of those files to use when you are offline. Your only way around this is not to enable iCloud Drive on your Mac and access it through iCloud.com using your web browser.

     

    This would do what you want but it isn't an ideal way to keep your photos.

  • by Rysz,Solvedanswer

    Rysz Rysz Aug 5, 2016 7:44 AM in response to beautifulnz
    Level 7 (20,202 points)
    iTunes
    Aug 5, 2016 7:44 AM in response to beautifulnz

    iCloud Photo Library is an "all or nothing" affair (BTW, that means you don't have to use it at all). Whatever photos you add/take on any devices or computers linked to that iCPL account, will be uploaded to the cloud.

     

    The storage message you received is about running low on your Mac, not on iCloud. Yes, you can also keep an Optimized library on your computer, but as I explained, that leaves you without a backup of your full-resolution photos and videos. It's a dangerous gamble to take to rely solely on cloud storage.

     

    Hard drives do fail, but external drives are no different in that respect than internal drives. Because they fail, keeping current backups is essential. Not sure why you had such bad luck with them, but that should not be a reason not to have backups at all of your Photos Library, which is what you're proposing. If it's their age, buy a new one.

  • by beautifulnz,

    beautifulnz beautifulnz Aug 5, 2016 8:36 AM in response to Rysz
    Level 1 (4 points)
    iCloud
    Aug 5, 2016 8:36 AM in response to Rysz

    Thanks Rysz I see what you mean.

    I Back up with Time machine amd will pull out my external hard drives

    Cheers

    Darren