Need more information about moving photos from My Photo Stream

If you wish to sync, you can use iCloud Photos and set it up on your devices. Otherwise, your photos are in the library of each device that took the photos. You can always combine those at any time. For complete details, see: Information about the My Photo Stream shutdown - Apple Support

wmlbrown wrote:

That answers one question. I will restate the others:

1) How do I find out which photos in My Photo Stream are not in my Library - without spending hours of cross-checking the thousands of photos in each?

Any photo in My Photo Stream is already in the library on one of your devices. If you connect your other devices to the computer on which you have the main library, you can import "new" photos. Otherwise, there is likely nothing that you need to do.

2) How do I move photos from MPS to the Library? The article directions say to to drag and drop photos from MPS to Library. Photos will not drop.

You can drag and drop photos directly from My Photo Stream. Or, you should be able to select any individual photo to copy or import. If you cannot drag and drop the photos should already be part of your library.

3) Where can I get directions to download photos to a device or hard disk?

Anything on your computer is already on your internal drive. You can export or drag and drop photos out of the library or Explorer Window and store wherever you would like.

4) (new question) How can I delete from iCloud the photos I download in order to free up space?

If you elect to use iCloud to sync, anything on your device is also in iCloud. If you delete a photo on a device, it will delete from iCloud and all other synced devices.

This might be the easiest thing to do if you're not sure as to whether you have all of your images across devices in one spot:

1. Backup all devices and your Mac using iCloud, or computer backups for your devices and by making a Time Machine backup of your Mac. How to back up your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch - Apple Support | Back up your Mac with Time Machine - Apple Support
2. Ensure that you have enough space on iCloud to upload and sync your photos (even if you only use it for one month). Upgrade to iCloud+ - Apple Support
3. Turn on iCloud sync on all devices that you wish to sync. This will send all photos into iCloud and sync across your devices. It may also cause duplicate files for some photos
4. Once everything has synced to your Mac, you can turn off iCloud Photos if you wish. Export any photos that you wish. Create new libraries, etc. without affecting photos in iCloud. Or, you can make modifications while leaving iCloud Photos on to affect all devices. Just remember that if you remove a photo from your library, it will also be removed from iCloud.
5. Newer versions of Photos include duplicate checking built-in. Or, you may wish to investigate software that can check for duplicates, change metadata, etc.

What else do you need to know? The shutdown will not affect any of your images as they all remain on the device used to take them or where you have stored the images. If you wish to sync, you can use iCloud to sync all devices or, you can import into one collection (likely on your laptop).

If you're referring to:

In addition, what happens when we put new photos into the Library? Nothing, the photos are added to your library.

Does it increase our ICould usage? If you sync with iCloud, yes. Any image will take up additional iCloud space. And, images will sync across all devices logged into iCloud.

What alternatives are there? There are many other cloud providers but the ease of use in syncing through Apple will not necessarily exist.

How about directions to download photos to a device or hard disk? Your images remain on device. You can import to your laptop or sync using iCloud.