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Do cloud photos overwrite photos app???

I recently decided to clean up my photos and get organized. And of course, one small project led to a bigger one. Long story, short: I have a Mac, iPhone, and Ipad... I use the iCloud photo library across all of my devices. Everything worked great... very cool feature. But, I soon noticed that my battery life on the phone was draining pretty quickly. I investigated... and found that the photo cloud sync process was killing my battery life. So, I decided that I should clean up the number of photos I have to reduce the sync time. Once I really got involved, I noticed that I was seeing a lot of duplicate photos... lots! This is what really started my clean up venture. Furthermore... I started discovering a lot of pictures that weren't sorted into albums, and really not worth keeping at all anyway. So, I turned off iCloud photo library on all devices (got the message telling me that my photos would be stored for 30 days... which by the way is very irritating. I just want them gone now). I then exported all my photos "in original format" that I want to keep from the Photos app on my Mac. They are now safely stored on the computer and a USB drive, perfectly organized and cleaned up. I then wiped my Photos app completely and even deleted the photos library file in order to create a new one. I also wiped the iphone and ipad of all photos. Everything worked perfectly and is exactly the way I want it. I'm ready to import my photos back into the Photos app as if it was for the first time. So, now comes my question... If I re-enable the icloud photo library on my devices, will the unorganized clutter on the cloud overwrite my nice new organized photos app on my Mac? Or, will my fresh album structure on my Mac overwrite the cloud clutter? Or, will they sync and I'll be left with a mess again? Perhaps it's safest to wait the 30 days and let the cloud clear everything before I re-enable the icloud photo library on my devices. Thanks very much in advance for any assistance!

Posted on Jul 7, 2015 7:09 AM

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3 replies

Jul 7, 2015 8:03 AM in response to jmh77

How you manage to get the icloud photo library pictures/videos to the external hdd ? I mean real picture/video-files like windows-style,not that "photo-library icon" ?


I done excatly the same thing today (cleaning out my photos/videos) but cannot get the files safe to my external hdd. Tried to download via icloud.com to my hdd but it doesnt work. I have 2971 files and the download mystically stop about 1500-1800 files 😠 I dont get it, is it a bug or what ?


Phone and ipad are now clean, photo library set to off, and all pictures/videos deleted. Only now frustraiding with my iMac and those **** photos. How in the **** i can download them to my ext.hdd like "windows style" ?


Edit: And also i started my cleaning task becouse those disgusting duplicates all over the place 😟

Jul 7, 2015 8:20 AM in response to FinlandiOs

Very easy actually... In the Photos app on your Mac and within the album you are working, highlite the photos (or select all) and then from your menu bar, choose 'File', and 'Export'. You want to select the export option for keeping original format. It will then allow you to choose where to export to. This function will allow you to export to the original .jpg format. Hope that helps.

Jul 7, 2015 10:07 AM in response to jmh77

Nice ! I feel like dumb now 😁 Now its exporting all the files to my ext. usb hdd. Let see when it comes to end, that there are really all my pictures/videos safe. Then i can wipe the photos-app on imac just fresh clean start.


I noticed too, if you have cancelled your icloud library (30-days remaining), you cannot delete anything in the icloud.com. But if you put it on, and delete all and after that cancel the icloud library, i think it will be clean and empty ? Im gonna try that when i got the export finished.


In the iPhone -> Settings -> iCloud -> Storage -> Manage Storage -> iCloud Photo Library. (You probably knew this already) 🙂

Do cloud photos overwrite photos app???

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