iCloud Photo Library is available with the new Photos app for iOS 8.1 or later. The Photos app for Mac will be available at a later date. You can also access your entire library from any Mac or PC at iCloud.com/photos.
You need an Apple ID, an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with iOS 8.1 or later, and enough storage in iCloud.
After you update to iOS 8.1 or later and sign in to iCloud, you can easily turn on iCloud Photo Library. Just go to Settings > iCloud > Photos, then turn on iCloud Photo Library beta.
The Camera Roll and My Photo Stream album are replaced with an All Photos album, which gives you the same compact scroll view, now with all your photos and videos organized by the date they were added. Learn more about finding photos in iOS 8.
After you enable iCloud Photo Library, all your original photos and videos are organized in one library. My Photo Stream will upload recent photos to share with your other devices, but iCloud Photo Library stores your originals. See how to upload originals below.
Yes. iCloud Photo Library does count against your iCloud storage.
If you turn on Optimize [device] Storage, iCloud Photo Library will automatically manage the size of your library on your iOS device, so you can make the most of your device's storage and access more photos than ever. iCloud Photo Library stores the original, high-resolution photos and videos in iCloud and can keep lightweight, device-optimized versions on each of your devices. As long as you have enough storage, recent photos and videos that you access the most will stay on your device at full resolution.
You can turn on Optimize [device] Storage from Settings > iCloud > Photos or Settings > Photos & Camera > iCloud Photo Library on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. You need an Internet connection to access an original photo or video that’s stored only in iCloud.
Yes. If you turn on iCloud Photo Library, it will automatically upload and store all of your photos and videos from any of your devices that are using iCloud Photo Library. iCloud Photo Library won't be part of the iCloud Backup, because it's already storing all your photos and videos in iCloud.
iCloud Photo Library won't upload lower resolution photos and videos synced to your device from iTunes. You can use these steps to move the photos from your computer to your iOS device.
Use Airdrop to copy the photos from your computer to your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch:
- Make sure that you're signed in with the same Apple ID on your computer and iOS device.
- Unlock your iOS device and turn on Airdrop.
- Open a new Finder window on your Mac and choose Airdrop in the sidebar.
- Drag the photos onto the icon for the iOS device in the Finder window.
Upload the photos to the beta Photos app on iCloud.com:
- Sign in to iCloud.com using the same Apple ID you use for iCloud Photo library.
- Click iCloud Photo Library.
- Click the Upload button.
- Select the photos you want to upload.
- Click OK.
iCloud Photo Library automatically stores all of your photos and videos in their original formats, including JPEG, RAW, PNG, GIF, TIFF, and MP4.
You might not be able to play MP4 videos using Firefox. Try using a different supported browser, such as Safari 8 or later or Google Chrome 28 or later.
When you turn on iCloud Photo Library on your devices, your photos and videos will begin to upload after you connect to the Internet using Wi-Fi. You can see the status on the Photos tab and pause upload for one day from Settings > iCloud > Photos.
Depending on your Internet connection speed, the time it takes for your photos and videos to appear on all of your devices might vary.
The number of photos and videos you can store depends on how much iCloud storage you have. When you sign up for iCloud, you automatically get 5 GB of free storage, and several iCloud storage plans are available from 20 GB to 1 TB.
On your iOS device with iOS 8.1 or later, open the Photos app and tap the Photos tab. Photos and videos are organized by date, and listed by Moments, Collections, and Years. In iOS 8.1, you can also view your photos and videos by the date they were added from the All Photos album. Your entire library is also available on the beta Photos app on iCloud.com.
You can upload original photos and videos using the beta Photos app on iCloud.com, as long as each photo or video is less than 16 GB in size.
Any edits you make (such as cropping or applying a filter) are automatically updated across all your devices. Because the original version is stored in iCloud, you can revert to the original view at any time. If you choose Optimize Device Storage, your original photo or video will be downloaded for editing.
You can turn off iCloud Photo Library for a single iOS device by going to Settings > iCloud > Photos and turning off iCloud Photo Library beta. If you turned on Optimize [device] Storage, you might not be storing all original photos and videos on that device. To download the original photos and videos, select Download and Keep Originals. Then you can turn iCloud Photo Library off. You can also select the items that you want to download within the beta Photos app on iCloud.com.
You can disable iCloud Photo Library (and recover iCloud storage) for all devices by going to Settings > iCloud > Storage > Manage Storage > iCloud Photo Library beta, then selecting Disable and Delete. Once disabled, you will have 30 days to download your library to at least one device. You can download your photos and videos to your iOS device by turning on Keep Originals or by selecting the items to download from iCloud.com/photos.
Deleting a photo or video from your Photos app will also remove the item from iCloud Photo Library and from your iCloud storage allocation. Photos and videos you remove can be recovered from the Recently Deleted album for 30 days. After 30 days, your content will be removed from the Recently Deleted album. Photos are backed up on our servers for up to 30 days after they're deleted from the Photos app. If you need to recover these photos during that time, contact Apple Support.
If you exceed your iCloud storage limit, photos and videos won't upload to iCloud, and your library will no longer stay up to date across your devices. To continue using iCloud Photo Library, upgrade your storage plan or reduce the amount of storage that you're using.
Go to iCloud.com to reduce the storage for iCloud Photo Library by deleting photos and videos that you no longer want to keep. You can manage other storage data in settings right from your iOS device.
When you're over your storage limit, features that use iCloud storage will also stop uploading to iCloud.
