Photos and videos being uploaded to iCloud without iCloud sharing enabled

Question

Photos and videos being uploaded to iCloud without iCloud sharing enabled

I've never turned on icloud sharing for my photos and videos before, but for some reason 4gb of my photos and videos somehow ended up on Apple's icloud anyways. The most recent were some videos from a few weeks ago, and I know for a fact I didn't change my settings then, and I just checked them now to confirm they're still set to not upload anything to icloud.

How is Apple getting to the content on my phone without my permission?

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Original Title: Why are my photos and videos being uploaded to icloud from my phone without icloud sharing being turned on?

iPhone 14 Pro

Posted on Dec 25, 2025 2:55 AM

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Answer 1

Dec 25, 2025 11:28 AM in response to muguy

I recorded some videos a few weeks ago and iCloud wasn't turned on, but they're showing up on icloud.com now. I bent over backwards to make sure of that, and I keep getting alert reminders to turn it on from my phone on a regular basis because of that.

However, I did upload those videos that showed up on iCloud to Google drive, so the only way they could have ended up on iCloud is if Apple uploaded them to iCloud at the same time.

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Answer 2

muguy

Level 10

91,196 points

Dec 25, 2025 12:42 PM in response to MacManiac4Life

Apple doesn't upload your videos/pictures. Either. iCloud photos Wass enabled, or your Google Drive photos location syncs with your photos on device. Do the images show at iCloud.com/photos? Or, somewhere else? If you add files to Google Drive, do they show in iCloud?

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Answer 3

Dec 25, 2025 5:02 PM in response to muguy

Yes, the files I uploaded to Google drive are showing up on iCloud, but I never had iCloud enabled on my phone. Since this just happened a few weeks ago I know for a fact I never enabled iCloud that recently.

For whatever reason, those video files went to iCloud and Google Drive at the same time, even with iCloud disabled.

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Answer 4

Dec 26, 2025 7:12 AM in response to MacManiac4Life

I think that you're saying that you see these picture at iCloud.com but not on your phone-- is that right?

Then it sounds like the problem is that Google Photos is set to sync with iCloud. This is a setting at Google, not at Apple. It sounds like iCloud is just doing what you, unknowingly, told Google to do. You either need to go into your Google settings, and turn that syncing off, or talk to the Google folks.

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Answer 5

muguy

Level 10

91,196 points

Dec 25, 2025 10:01 AM in response to MacManiac4Life

Without iCloud enabled, photos will not sync. At some point, you likely had it enabled. Visit iCloud.com to review your content.

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