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How do you move photos from camera roll to cloud to free up memory

I want to free up memory on my iPad by moving photos from the camera roll to iCloud. How do I go about doing this and will I be able to retrieve these photos readily when I want to again see them on my iPad? Thank you for any assistance.

iPad (3rd gen) Wi-Fi + Cellular, iOS 7.0.4

Posted on Dec 19, 2013 3:50 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jan 24, 2017 12:19 AM

No, as far as I know, there's no way to do that using iCloud, they're always kept in sync. You can either:

  • Ask Apple to change this behaviour: http://www.apple.com/feedback/
  • Use a different cloud service, e.g. OneDrive, Dropbox or Google Drive, they all provide a way to backup your photos and sync them for offline viewing when needed.
12 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jan 24, 2017 12:19 AM in response to Doug.ie

No, as far as I know, there's no way to do that using iCloud, they're always kept in sync. You can either:

  • Ask Apple to change this behaviour: http://www.apple.com/feedback/
  • Use a different cloud service, e.g. OneDrive, Dropbox or Google Drive, they all provide a way to backup your photos and sync them for offline viewing when needed.

Dec 19, 2013 8:50 PM in response to Doug.ie

If you want to move them off with the ability to retrieve them later you can definitely do that with iCloud by creating a "Shared" photo stream. Shared Photo Streams are permanent iCloud albums for storing photos and videos that can sync across all your iCloud-enabled devices. This is different from your "My Photo stream" that's basically a running tally only holding photos for about a month.

In your photos app, at the bottom you'll see a "shared" icon. Choose it and then create a new shared stream, kicker is you don't have to actually share it with anyone when it prompts you for a contact just click "Create". Then choose the photos you want in there. You can then go and delete them from your camera roll and they will remain in the shared stream.

Dec 19, 2013 9:43 PM in response to DMRink

DMRink wrote:


If you want to move them off with the ability to retrieve them later you can definitely do that with iCloud by creating a "Shared" photo stream.

Photo Stream is NOT designed for long term storage. Once a stream reaches 1000, older photos will be deleted. Anything you want to keep should be transferred to a computer our uploaded to something like DropBox.

Dec 19, 2013 10:02 PM in response to IdrisSeabright

Apple states:

How many photos and videos can be stored in a shared stream?


A shared stream can hold a maximum of 5000 photos and videos combined. When you reach your limit, you must delete some photos or videos before adding new ones.




How long are iCloud Photo Sharing photos and videos stored in iCloud?


The photos and videos you share (and the comments or Likes associated with those photos) remain in iCloud until you or the contributor delete them manually, or until you delete the shared stream completely.

Mar 10, 2015 5:31 AM in response to bobseufert

Aloha Léonie. This is basically a zombie thread brough back to life by the person before my first reply. The only reason I even answered is I didn't want erroneous information to be left unchallenged. Stay well. Bob.

That is the same reason why I answered 😁 to put the answer into the context of the correct iOS version.


Plus, because the last entry had not been removed, in spite of being reported as data recovery SPAM.

How do you move photos from camera roll to cloud to free up memory

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