Large iCloud Photo Library

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Level 2

263 points

Large iCloud Photo Library

If you have a largish iCloud Photo library (let's say 200+ GB), do these files get downloaded to all of your iPhones, iPads, etc.? I see there are some settings to only download 'optimized' versions, but it doesn't seem to let me tell it to, say, limit the library to no more than 10GB on my iPhone, or only things in the last year, or whatever.

So, to restate the question – what will my iDevices do with my 200+ GB iCloud Photo library?

MacBook Pro (15-inch Early 2011), OS X Yosemite (10.10.3), 8 GB 1333 MHz DDR3

Posted on Apr 27, 2015 1:52 PM

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Answer 1

Tor Lundgren Author

Level 2

263 points

Oct 19, 2015 9:24 AM in response to Tor Lundgren

Anybody else?

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Answer 2

Eric Root

Level 10

685,293 points

Oct 19, 2015 12:46 PM in response to Tor Lundgren

Based on what I have read in these forums, it will download as many as possible.

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Answer 3

Oct 19, 2015 12:58 PM in response to Tor Lundgren

My photos library is about 40 GB. I have had the "photos" program a couple months. Today, when I opened Photos, it reads "welcome, all new for OS X...blah blah blah. In a little box it reads, "Get Started" I clicked get started over two hours ago, and the wheel is still spinning....Please help! I have mid-2010 MacBook Pro.

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Answer 4

Tor Lundgren Author

Level 2

263 points

Oct 19, 2015 1:17 PM in response to colleen747

Hi Colleen! This is a bit of a different topic. I suggest you start a new discussion thread.

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Answer 5

Tor Lundgren Author

Level 2

263 points

Oct 19, 2015 1:18 PM in response to Eric Root

That is what I gather, too, but I'm having trouble getting anything more precise—and I suspect there is a little more to it than that.

If this is the case, though, it is pretty poor, since the device constantly complains about not having enough space and has NO room at all to take new photos, let alone video.

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Answer 6

Dec 5, 2016 9:13 AM in response to Tor Lundgren

I have same question. It's about 30k photos (say 160GB) and they'll be uploading to icloud for about the next week at current rate. What I want on iPhone is to see all thumbnail size and only optimized res for those i look at. Is that what it's going to do? How many GB of iPhone will that take?

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Answer 7

Eric Root

Level 10

685,293 points

Dec 5, 2016 9:27 AM in response to rogue.one

The upload rate is slow and given the size of your photos (160 GB) a week or two isn't abnormal.

How many GB the iPhone will take depends on how much storage space you have left on the iPhone.

To increase space available, go Settings/iCloud/Photos and select Optimize iPhone/iPad Storage. That will reduce the space required by about 90% when fully effective.

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Answer 8

Dec 5, 2016 10:32 AM in response to Eric Root

Thanks. That's helpful. But i'm not looking too good with the 16GB iPhone 5s then ... I'm hoping it will manage half the photos (the recent half) and leave enough space for news ones and other stuff. Wait and see I suppose.

I don't want to have to set iPhone to Photo Stream - because its having to delete from Camera Roll, and Photo Stream, and now iCloud Photo Library when I don't want a photo that drives one crazy!!!

iCloud Photo Library is the answer. I suppose I just gotta wake-up, smell the coffee and upgrade the iPhone.

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