orionreplay
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Q: iPhone 6 iCloud photo storage

Good day.  I am a new iPhone owner (iPhone 6).  My wife's iMac is full of thousands of photos and is continuing to slowly shift them to iCloud Photos for about a week now.  I purchased 500gb storage on the cloud using my account.

 

When I purchased the subject iPhone 6 and linked it to my iCloud account, gradually the phone lost 6gb of space to photos.  I currently have 5gb remaining on a four day old iPhone and have only installed 5 minor-mb apps to date.  Each new night of uploading from the iMac increases my iPhone loss as more pics are added to the iCloud.

 

My hope was any photos I took with the phone would upload to the Cloud and when deleted from my iPhone, the photos would reside in the Cloud and the space recovered on iPhone.  If I wanted to show family a picture over wifi from months ago, I could access the Cloud, find the thumbnail and download to iPhone.  I then could delete the photo locally from the phone and move on.

 

It appears when I attempt to delete photos from my iPhone, the message I am told is it will also delete from the iCloud.  It's a horrible Catch-22.  I like my phone photos uploading over wifi to the iCloud for storage, but if then deleted from phone to save space, it deletes from iCloud.

 

I have settings under Photos set to Optimize iPhone Storage, yet this does not feel optimized... or optimal... by any stretch.

 

Am I missing a key ingredient here?  Or am I simply misunderstanding what is occurring?

 

Thank you.

Lucas

Posted on May 9, 2015 2:16 PM

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orionreplay

Q: iPhone 6 iCloud photo storage

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  • Helpful answers

  • by FoxFifth,

    FoxFifth FoxFifth May 9, 2015 3:00 PM in response to orionreplay
    Level 7 (26,761 points)
    iPhone
    May 9, 2015 3:00 PM in response to orionreplay

    Apple does not have a cloud-only storage option. The most you can do to reduce storage on the phone if you are using iCloud Photo Library is Settings > Photos & Camera > Optimize iPhone Storage. If you delete a photo from the phone or from Photos in the iMac or from iCloud, it will delete from all  3 locations. The other option would be to have two Photos libraries on your iMac -- one smaller one linked to iCloud Photo Library (and therefore to the iPhone) and the other not, but there are significant disadvantages to that also. More information if you want to explore that option: Adjust the size of your Photos library to work with iCloud Photo Library - Apple Support

  • by orionreplay,

    orionreplay orionreplay May 10, 2015 2:27 AM in response to FoxFifth
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 10, 2015 2:27 AM in response to FoxFifth

    Good morning, FoxFifth.  If I am reading correctly, I guess another solution could simply be to turn off the iCloud connection to Photos on my iPhone?  I could then, in theory, simply migrate those few local photos I do take on a weekly basis to the iCloud via other upload methods.  Correct?  I just wouldn't be able to show off the kids unless I had something stored locally.

     

    We believed iCloud was going to help us by getting 300gb of photos off physical, fail-able hard drives and then continue uploads once completed from our camera (and now the iPhone 6 as of this past week).  Which admittedly, it has done to a degree.  Yet my plan has caused is myself to have space-panic regarding my now 5-day old iPhone 6.  We own the iMac and now my iPhone 6.

     

    Through this conversation I am beginning to believe that maybe iCloud wasn't what we needed all along?  I thought I'd simply tap into the existing iCloud structure and away I'd go.  My wife prefers another brand of screen-phone and stayed with that brand, so it is only me having angst with a new device.

     

    Back to the drawing board, I think.  Anyone know how to get iMac Yosemite Photos app photos to Amazon?  I have had a Prime subscription since 2005.  I could take advantage of that...?

  • by FoxFifth,Helpful

    FoxFifth FoxFifth May 10, 2015 8:47 AM in response to orionreplay
    Level 7 (26,761 points)
    iPhone
    May 10, 2015 8:47 AM in response to orionreplay

    My first thought when I read your original post that said you had purchased 500GB was that there must be more inexpensive cloud options. I don't know anything about Amazon Prime but I wouldn't be surprised if they don't have an interface to Photos yet since it is so new. Worst case I suspect you could use the Photos File menu Export item to get copies out of the Photos library and then upload those files to Amazon -- but that could be a painful manual process. You may want to contact Amazon support and see what they recommend.

  • by orionreplay,

    orionreplay orionreplay May 10, 2015 8:51 AM in response to FoxFifth
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 10, 2015 8:51 AM in response to FoxFifth

    I will contact Amazon and ask.  Their system is rudimentary and allows for a drag and drop into their application, which then is synced to my Amazon free Photo cloud.  Free is hard to pass up, but the Apple iCloud upload function was terrifically easy... tell it to "go" and walk away.  I just was not aware of the frustration I'd run into when I purchased the iPhone last week.

     

    It's all good. We will figure something out. Thank you for your time in the matter.