Q: iPhone: Photos and iCloud

Hi Karen, I have added my comments in blue below, easier for me to answer your questions that way...

InTheWoods wrote:

 

Here's what I am hoping I can do: I am using iCloud to back up my photos from my iMac.

 

All of my photos on my iMac are also going to my iPhone (5,000+ photos). It seems I used to be able to select in iTunes which photo albums I put on my phone. Now all of my albums are on my phone and I don't see where I have a say in the matter. (this is also true with my iPad). You must be using iCloud Photo Library and that's how it behaves. If you use iCPL you have no say as you mentioned. If you turn iCPL Off (be carefully with deleting photos unintentionally, see link below) you can manually choose which albums to sync from iTunes on your computer to your iPhone and/or iPad, that's how I do it.

iCloud Photo Library - Apple Support

 

I really liked being able to select which albums I had on my mobile devices...I certainly don't need my entire photo library on them. Any ideas?  See my comments above.

 

In addition, I am seeing that if I delete a photo on my iPhone, it deletes on my iMac as well which I definitely don't want to happen. This is due to iCPL, how it behaves, and the reason I don't use it.

 

In a perfect world, I would like photos I take on my phone to automatically sync to my iMac but if I delete something from my phone, I don't want it to delete from my iMac. Asking too much I'm guessing? Try My Photo Stream and see if it does what you want.

My Photo Stream FAQ - Apple Support

 

Thanks in advance!

Karen

My pleasure, glad it helped...