Difference between camera roll, photo stream, and photo library

I am not sure if I am posting this in the correct place (I haven’t done this before) but I have read your post and have found it very helpful and useful and think I now understand the difference between Camera Roll and Photo Stream. The reason why I was looking at this information is because something has happened recently to my iPhone photos that I don’t understand.

I have an iPhone 4s which was running on OS7. When I first bought the phone it had Camera Roll on it – Camera Roll only. It did not have Photo Stream.

At some stage, and I don’t know, or can’t remember, what happened to trigger this but Camera Roll disappeared and was replaced by Photo Stream. I had updated the OS and this may have been when the change took place (I can’t remember, as it is a long time ago). I was happy with Photo Stream because any new photos that I took on my phone went straight into Photo Stream and were automatically uploaded onto my iMac and once I had stored them on my computer and filed them on my phone I just simply deleted them from Photo Stream, whereas I never really liked Camera Roll because all of my photos stayed in Camera Roll despite me sorting them into individual folders. I though because they had doubled up in this way that this would use more memory and I wasn’t happy with that.

For a long time now I have kept receiving message notifications telling me that I can update my OS but I have not bothered doing this because of all of the hassle I had the last time I updated, however, recently I have been having a few small glitches and wondered if it was due to the OS being old so I decided to update.

I did this yesterday (updated to OS 9.3.5) and now I have both Camera Roll and Photo Stream and I have never had both at the same time, so this is new to me and I din’t understand what the difference was, hence my search for help.

What is puzzling me, is that now that I have got Camera Roll back, there are 561 photos in there but in my individual folders that I use to keep and organize my photos there only 246 – where have all these extra photos come from? And can I delete them without losing them form my iMac. I recognise some as pictures that have been on my iPhone at some point but have been deleted, so why have they come back? Some of these photos are in Photo Stream but not all (there are only 40 photos in Photo Stream and some are very old – so again I don’t know why they have reappeared).

Seeing as I have not had Camera Roll for a couple of years and it has now reappeared I am not sure if that means that if I delete photos from Camera Roll they will also be deleted from the individual folders I have organised them into? After reading your post I guess that I will lose the photos if I delete them so that would mean that I will have to go though all of the 561 photos and check my folders to see which ones I have already saved on my phone and then delete the rest, the ones that I do want to keep, which is something I could do without. Some photos are easily recognised as ones I do not want but others I am not sure whether or not I have already saved them in the individual folders.

Q. Can you explain what has happened?

Q. Is it safe to delete the photos I want to keep from Camera Roll, now that I has reappeared, after working without if for so long?

The Camera Roll stores photos/videos that were captured by your iPhone. The Camera Roll also stores photos saved from a received email, from a website, or from a received MMS/iMessage.

The Photo Stream adds all new photos in the Camera Roll which will make the photos available on your computer with Photo Stream enabled and the same with another iOS device with Photo Stream enabled. Add photos on your computer to the Photo Stream on your computer and the photos will be available in the Photo Stream on your iPhone and with any other iOS device with Photo Stream enabled.

The Photo Library stores photos transferred from your computer via the iTunes sync/transfer process.

I have about 1100 photos on the camera roll, and 1400 in the photo library. I don't care to use Photo Stream.

I am periodically downloading photos from my iPhone to Picasa on a Vista PC.

I would like to save all my pictures, just not all on my iPhone. How can I archive them and clear all but a few from my iPhone.

Are they all physically taking up space on my phone? Are there duplicates? Obviously, I really don't understand how Apple has designed this.

Thanks.

Allan, really appreciated your description-- Camera Roll holds all your iPhone photos and Photo Library the ones synched with iPhoto. Crystal clear.

However, I just did a fresh sync via iTunes of various iPhoto folders to my iPhone and ended up with 849 photos in Camera Roll and 833 in Photo Library. Only a couple of hundred of the photos were taken by the iPhone (the rest by other cameras and a handful were iPhone screen shots), so how did I end up with 849??!

The difference of 16 intrigues me. What would cause that and is there an easy way of finding out which 16 those are?

I'm assuming that if I take a photo with the iPhone, that number in the Camera Roll will go up to 850, yet the new photo won't be synched.

I did find that the total number of photos in all the albums synched added up to 867. I suppose that's explainable if there were duplicates in some of the albums.

So, count me in on the confusion expressed by others here! Appreciate any illumination that anyone, including Allan, can shed on this!🙂

One interesting additional wrinkle on this. I rearranged the albums on the iPhone (dragged and changed their order in a couple of places) and re-synched.

Now, it's 849 and 847!

I should add that I did sync the iPhone with iPhoto before starting all this and brought over to iPhoto all photos that had been taken with the iPhone. Perhaps that will help in trouble-shooting this.

You're welcome.

The Camera Roll is not included or touched with the iTunes sync process, except for being included with your iPhone's backup if you are not backing up your iPhone wirelessly with an iCloud account.

The number of photos in the Camera Roll won't match the number of photos transferred from your computer stored in the Photo Library unless all photos in the Camera Roll are imported by your computer followed by all be re-transferred to your iPhone via the iTunes sync process.

Allan, much appreciate and clearer now. That's also great info about iTunes backing up the Camera Roll. So, I don't have to do that manually. Of course, I'm still scratching my head on a couple of points.

1. What's throwing me is that most photos were taken by a Canon digital camera--far more than by the iPhone. So, how the CR # ever got to 849 is beyond me.

2. On a 2nd iPhone, we've synched roughly the same iTunes folders, and the numbers are 239 in Camera Roll and 1,000+ in Photo Library. Will another sync jump the CR # dramatically on the 2nd iPhone? Or, will the # only go up if the photos being transferred were taken by that particular iPhone?

Ouch, my head hurts and this isn't even rocket science!! 🙂

OK, I think I get part of this now-- Camera Roll reflects photos taken fresh by the iPhone, as well as photos transferred into iPhoto and synched back via iTunes.

The Camera Roll stores photos and videos that were captured by the iPhone, and stores photos saved on the iPhone - from a recevied email, from an MMS/iMessage, from a website, or from an app, etc. When you say "transferred into iPhoto", the iPhoto app on the iPhone reflects photos in the Camera Roll and photos that were transferred from your computer. iPhoto on a Mac can be used to import photos/videos from any digital camera including from the iPhone's Camera Roll. Photos/videos in the Camera Roll on the iPhone are not touched or included with the iTunes sync process.

After importing photos from the Camera Roll with iPhoto, iPhoto includes an option to delete the photos from the Camera Roll after the import process is complete - the same prompt is provided after importing photos from any digital camera or from a camera storage card. After the photos are imported by your computer, you can transfer the photos to your iPhone along with any other photos on your computer via the iTunes sync process, which is selected under the Photos tab for your iPhone sync preferences with iTunes.

Thanks Allan,

So as I understand it, once I've imported all of my "Camera Roll" into my Iphoto, I can safely delete all of the items in the "Camera Roll"?

Currently I have two copies of each, which is taking up a lot of space on my Iphone.

Assuming the answer to my question is yes, is there any way I can do a check that all of the pics in my Camera Roll have in fact been imported? Or is this this the check that Itunes does each time I Sync my phone?

And finally, if I have said "No" to an import from my "Camera Roll", in the past, I assume that those images just sit in my "Camera Roll", and are not represented for importing - therefore, I would completely lose them if I empty my camera roll?

You're welcome.

So as I understand it, once I've imported all of my "Camera Roll" into my Iphoto, I can safely delete all of the items in the "Camera Roll"?

Correct.

Assuming the answer to my question is yes, is there any way I can do a check that all of the pics in my Camera Roll have in fact been imported? Or is this this the check that Itunes does each time I Sync my phone?

After importing photos/vidoes from the Camera Roll with iPhoto, iPhoto will provide a prompt to delete the photos/videos from the Camera Roll. The prompt is not provided unless the photos/videos were imported by iPhoto.

iTunes does not handle the import of photos/videos from Camera Roll, and does not check the Camera Roll to ensure photos/videos were imported by a iPhoto. The iTunes sync process is completely seperate from the Camera Roll except for the Camera Roll being included with the iPhone's backup if the backup is done by iTunes.

And finally, if I have said "No" to an import from my "Camera Roll", in the past, I assume that those images just sit in my "Camera Roll", and are not represented for importing - therefore, I would completely lose them if I empty my camera roll?

If the photos have not been imported from the Camera Roll and they are deleted, they will be lost unless they are in the PhotoStream or included with your iPhone's backup. If not in the PhotoStream and not in your iPhone's backup or if your iPhone's backup is updated after the photos are deleted from the Camera Roll, they will be lost.

Hello. Thank you both for staying on topic. So many responders go on to other more personal opinions etc.

My question is once my iPhone 4 and iPad2 photos are backed up to iCloud, may I safely delete them from my devices to create more space without deleting them from iCloud?

Photos/videos in the Camera Roll on each device are included with the backup for each device, but not a good idea to depend on that backup alone for this data. If a problem develops with the backup in regards to the photos and the photos are imported by your computer, they will be lost.

The PhotoStream is temporary - limited to 1,000 photos and 30 days for each.

Photos/videos in the Camera Roll on each device should be imported by your computer as with an other digital camera.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4083

Most photo import utilities include an option to delete the photos/videos from the Camera Roll after the import process is complete.

I am syncing one album on my phone from itunes. That album has 139 pics. The photo library says 139 (it is correct). The album shows 131. When you open the album and scroll to bottom, it isays 139.

Why the heck is the album showing 131 and not 139! The Photo library is displaying it right. Driving me crazy.

I am not talking about the camera roll at all. Just the photo library and the single album I am syncing.

Further, I have synced this album to one other phone and ipad. Both say 139 for photo library and the album.

But one phone is saying 131 for the album... when there is 139 pics in it.

oiy!

I don't know what I did... that worked.

First I deleted iphoto cache in library.... and resynced. The error was still there.

I then deleted a photo from the camera roll and resynched and it was fixed.

Most likely the deleting of a photo from camera roll forced a recount or something?

Hi all,

I synced photos from my computer onto my iphone and they automatically went into their own album 'Photo Library'. I want to delete the photos from this album and the album itself. I cannot seem to figure out how to do it!! I'm sure it's simple, I have just read this discussion to see if it was answered somewhere. If anyone knows how please reply!!