I can see nothing called 'camera roll' on my phone since updating to Photos. I have backed up to my Mac and also to iCloud and want to free up camera space on my iPhone 5. When I look in Albums I only see 'All Photos' and 'Favorites', as well as many other albums I've created, but no 'camera roll'. I want to delete photos I'm carrying on my phone so that I have more space. Please help.
iPhone 5, iOS 8.3
If that happened to me, I would try taking a photo using the iPhone. Then look for "Camera Roll" under "Albums". I would expect to find the photo I just took there. If it is not there, then figure out where it landed and then perhaps why.
When you say "... When I look in Albums ..." I assume you are looking directly on your iPhone and not in iTunes or Photos on your Mac. You should certainly be doing this.
If you enabled iCloud Photo Library, there's no Camera Roll in Photos. Photos/iCloud Photo Library uses entirely different, easier and more efficient way of syncing images and managing storage on devices and Macs.
Get started with Photos for OS X
iMore has a very detailed, well illustrated article on iCloud Photo Library:
Thank you, but this didn't help. I read those articles and am still no clearer on how to delete photos from my phone but not effect the iCloud library. Which place does one delete them from? Albums or Photos? Perhaps I need help in person. I have been researching this and looking for answers for weeks. I am not new to Apple software or systems or the phone, but this issue has me so confused. It doesn't help that so much of the info still refers to 'camera roll', which is why I thought I should still be seeing it. There is no Apple store or dealer near me so I am on my own trying to figure these things out, until I go to a city.
Ardysupport wrote:
Thank you, but this didn't help. I read those articles and am still no clearer on how to delete photos from my phone but not effect the iCloud library. Which place does one delete them from? Albums or Photos?
You're missing the point by looking at this thru the old iPhoto/My Photo Stream binoculars. With Photos and iCloud Photo Library you no longer have to decide where to edit or delete images, and you no longer have to worry about manually managing the storage used by your devices.
As to whether to delete images in Photos /All Photos or Albums, that's no different from what you had in iPhotos , except that it's much simpler and straight forward. Photos/All Photos is the Library. Albums, Folders (and Events in iPhoto) just use "pointers" or "aliases" to the "original" files in the Library. Therfore, deleting from Photos/All Photos actually deletes the image (moves it to the Recently Deleted album), whereas deleting an image from Album, Slideshow, or Photo Book, just removes it from those containers, not from the Library. It's the same as in iTunes: you have a Library that holds everything, but you can include individual tracks in Playlists, without the tracks being duplicated.
To describe the Photos/iCloud Photo Library approach in much simpler terms. With this new approach:
- All original-resolution files are kept in iCloud Photo Libray;
- Unlike iPhoto/My Photo Stream, Photos/iCloud Photo Library includes videos, not just photos;
- You decide if you want to keep full-resolution or "optimized" copies on your Mac and/or iDevices;
- Amount of storage space used for optimized libraries is automatically and dynamically set by Photos;
- ALL images are "accessible" on ALL Macs and devices, even if the local library only stores tiny thumbnail copies of the images to conserve storage space;
- ANY changes made on ANY Mac or device are nearly instantly mirrored to ALL other Macs and devices;
I think I'm done 😉
So none of my photos, even the ones I have taken today are actually on my phone? I've noticed that some seem to be readily available while others have to download from the cloud and I'm wondering why the difference, and am thinking that is because the ones that are readily available are on the camera itself, and that eventually I need to delete them from the camera so it doesn't get too full. Does it perhaps only hold photos on the phone device for 30 days or something? Thank you for your patience, I can't believe this is so hard for me to grasp!!
Just because it's not on "Camera Roll" doesn't mean it's not on your iPhone. That's just a name of a special Album.
If you still have My Photo Stream enabled, and it sounds like you have, your last 30 days/1000 images are still on iCloud. If your images need to be "downloaded" first to be viewed, you might have also enabled iCloud Photo Library. The two are not mutually exclusive, they just duplicate functions, making it more complicated to know what's going on.
My suggestion:
- Launch Photos on your Mac. In Preferences > General > check if Photos Library is set as System Photo Library (the button should be greyed out);
- Sync your iPhone to Photos;
- Set preferences to enable iCloud Photo Library to be on, My Photo Stream to be off on all your Macs and devices;
- Set Mac to Copy all images to Library;
- Set your devices to use an " Optimized" library.
Yes, yes, yes!!! I think you have hit on the problem and why it is so confusing for me. I will try as you say in the next little while and see how I go. Thank you SO much!! BTW I am in the middle of Outback Australia, and when I say I have no one else to ask, I mean it!! 🙂
Okay I have done all you suggest to my devices and my Mac. One last question for now...do I need to edit/delete photos from Albums>all photos list ever? Will my phone memory get too full at some point if I have the settings as per your suggestion above? I'm getting ready to travel in a few weeks and I just want to make sure I don't lose anything due to not having enough memory. Do I need to be somewhere with wifi for things to upload to the cloud? Okay, that was two questions, I know. I'll stop now. You've been very helpful, thank you so much.
Normalny you do not need to worry about free storage space. It should all be adjusted automatically. Having said this, Photos/iCloud Photo Libray is at version 1.0, so it might not be as polished as it should be.
1. You add and/or delete Albums and album contents as you see fit. This does not affect what is retained in your Library. Photos is not an Album, it's the Library. All Photos is a special Album, like Faces, Panoramas, etc, but it acts like Photos in that if you delete an image from it, it will be moved to Recently Deleted (sorry about this breaking the general "rules" outline before, I'm trying to get Apple to correct this anomaly).
2. Having a Wi-Fi connection should definitely be helpful in letting Photos manage free storage space and getting the images "backed up" to iCloud. I know this is not alway possible during vacations. If you anticipate Wi-Fi connection every two or three days (depends on how many photos you take per day), you should be OK. If you think you'll be without Wi-Fi for the duration of the vacation, I suggest disabling iCloud Photo Libray before leaving and clearing your local Photos Library. Just remember that if you do this, you have no backup for your new photos.
[I apologize if this is getting too complicated, but I'm trying to state things that cover all contingencies, without really knowing all the details of your particular situation.]
PS: You sound almost apologetic about being in the middle of nowhere in Australia. That actually sounds very appealing! Enjoy your vacation!
BTW, if you browse thru the links I provided earlier, now that you understand everything better, they will likely be much more illuminating.
Thanks again. I think I've got it. I'm not on vacation, I live in the middle of Australia!! Cheers!
Where is 'camera roll' in Photos?
