How to manually back up live photos to iCloud Photos?

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Level 1

8 points

How to manually back up live photos to iCloud Photos?

I have a 16gb iPhone 6. I continually have no storage as photos take up all the space, and iCloud photos doesn't back them up to iCloud and remove them from my phone. It's supposed to "automatically" but it never does.

Some people online say you have to have 300mb of free space, have the phone powered on, plugged in, on Wifi, and wait until 3am for it to back up.

I've tried having all those conditions met and it doesn't work.

So I used Image Capture on my Mac to download all the photos from my phone.

I went to iCloud.com and logged in and went to the Photos app section to see at which point they stopped backing up. I chose the upload icon to upload the missing photos, but it only allows me to select .jpg files, not .png or .mov files.

It effectively doesn't support uploading live photos.

How can I manually back up live photos to iCloud using my Mac?

iPhone 6s, iOS 13

Posted on Aug 14, 2020 11:08 AM

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Answer 1

zinacef

Level 10

88,828 points

Aug 14, 2020 2:41 PM in response to GaneshaMomma

If you have extra iCloud storage space you purchase, then it's possible that you're seeing this message/notification because your device is out of storage space. iCloud was designed to work where it would store your photos in the cloud whilst also storing a smaller footprint of the same data on your device as well. They go hand-in-hand.

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Answer 2

GaneshaMomma Author

Level 1

8 points

Aug 15, 2020 4:29 PM in response to zinacef

Thank you, yes I have the 2 TB iCloud plan and have plenty of space there.

Yes I had previously backed up my photos, then turned off iCloud photo syncing which deleted all of the pictures clogging up my local storage. But the problem is that When I re-enable iCloud it simply fills all my phones free space with photos, thereby defeating the purpose of why I bought the extra cloud storage.

What has been infuriating is that there are no manual controls on this, to set how much space if any I want to use for iCloud stored photo thumbnails.

There needs to be a manual control on all elements of iCloud backups.

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Answer 3

zinacef

Level 10

88,828 points

Aug 15, 2020 5:43 PM in response to GaneshaMomma

Second paragraph, if you're truly wanting to get rid of all of your photos, then you will have to delete it from iCloud Photos which will send it to the Recently Deleted folder where it stay for 30 days before final removal. After you do this, turn off iCloud Photos completely via Settings > Name > iCloud > Photos > off.

Third paragraph, the only "manual controls" I know of are -- About storage on your device and in iCloud - Apple Support & How to check the storage on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch - Apple Support which will explain how to check what's taking up storage and how much.

Last paragraph, not sure what you mean by "manual control on all elements of iCloud backups".

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Answer 4

LACAllen

Level 8

43,602 points

Aug 15, 2020 9:18 PM in response to GaneshaMomma

There needs to be a manual control on all elements of iCloud backups.

Feedback for Apple goes here >>> http://www.apple.com/feedback/

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How to manually back up live photos to iCloud Photos?

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