iCloud Photo Library Beta / Deleted PhotoStream content!

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iCloud Photo Library Beta / Deleted PhotoStream content!

Hi all --

I've been updating my photos to iCloud for months now, and decided this morning I would try to make a hard copy backup from iCloud since I had reached my PhotoStream capacity and older photos had begun to get erased. After some investigation I realized that I needed to update my iOS in order to access this feature (I was using 7.8). I updated to iOS 8.2. Upon completing the software update I activated the iCloud Photo Library (Beta) so that I could back up the photos to my computer. It's been "Preparing my library" for hours now, without any indication of progress -- just a spinning wheel on the iCloud website.

Now I've gone back into my phone to see whether my PhotoStream was still available, since it had become invisible after I activated the new function. I switched off the Photo Library Beta (maybe a horrible mistake), went to check my now visible PhotoStream, and the folder is completely empty! It had previously been at the 1000 photo capacity, and I'm terrified that these photos are now lost altogether! Does anybody know why the Photo Library works for anybody, or how I might go about trying to back this up? Theoretically shouldn't these photos still be stored somewhere?

Any help is appreciated. Pretty upsetting.

Matt

iPhone 5, iOS 8.2

Posted on Mar 28, 2015 4:08 PM

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Answer 1

Mar 28, 2015 4:39 PM in response to mtktm

Photo stream in the cloud and the photo stream album on your device are different things. Photo stream in the cloud only keeps content for 30 days, so if you turn off the photo stream album on your device by enabling iCloud photos and then enable it again, it will only download the photos from the last 30 days that are in the cloud.

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Answer 2

mtktm Author

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Mar 28, 2015 6:04 PM in response to Winston Churchill

If they are different things, then why is photo stream on my phone deactivated and the album made invisible when I activate photo library on icloud? When I switched back to settings where the album is visible, no photos are visible, even those taken just yesterday.

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Answer 3

Mar 29, 2015 4:04 AM in response to mtktm

They are different for the reason stated.

The photo stream album is disabled when you turn on iCloud photos because it is no longer needed.

If the photos you took yesterday aren't in the photo stream album when you turn it back on (assuming it's connected properly), then they were taken when photo stream was disabled.

Whats wrong with the photos in the camera roll.

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Answer 4

Mar 30, 2015 1:23 PM in response to Winston Churchill

Actually, Photostream is not disabled when you activate iCloud Photo Library. I can have both of them active.

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Answer 5

Mar 30, 2015 1:32 PM in response to emilianoe

That's not what I said. I said the photo stream album is disabled, all that setting does is allows new photos to be added to photo stream in the cloud if it' stunned on. When you turn on iCloud Photo Library you turn off your photo stream album, I'm not sure whether photo stream is on or off by default after you turn on iCloud Photo Library because I don't recall, but it's not important since you can decide for yourself anyway.

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Answer 6

Mar 30, 2015 1:50 PM in response to Winston Churchill

✅

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