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videos and photos taken on iPhone and then automatically downloaded to iMac (using iCloud) not full resolution

Ok so I have tried to look for a mention of this or a reason for it numerous times but can find nothing.


When I take videos and photos on iPhone 6, I have iCloud set up to auto upload to iCloud. The phone is set to optimise so the originals eventually go from the phone. I thought this was great as all photos and videos auto upload to iCloud and then i have access to all photos ever taken on iPhone.


I then have my iMac set up to use iPhoto to auto download and store all originals. All was seemingly working well until...


After a recent trip away I took some video/photos on iPhone when got back i wanted to check everything was on the iMac. It was, but....


I logged onto iCloud website and looked through videos they were very low quality so I got worried. I checked the iMac they seemed much better but I checked the image quality and was disturbed to find that the quality was half the original size on the iPhone.


The iPhone video was 1080p and the iPhoto video was 720p.


I looked at the photos auto downloaded and found the same thing all are a smaller file size than the ones on the iPhone.


How can this be???

I was under the impression it was a one to one upload to iCloud and therefore download to iMac.

How can this be the case? what is the point of having an iPhone which takes video at 1080p only to have it downgraded when uploading to iCloud? Or am I doing something wrong.


Any help greatly appreciated

iMac, OS X Yosemite (10.10.4)

Posted on Jul 20, 2015 4:39 AM

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5 replies

Jul 20, 2015 4:57 AM in response to wintersred

How are you using iCloud?


iCloud Photo Library is storing the original image files and videos in iCloud.


My Photo Stream is transferring the iPhone photos at the full resolution to your Mac. But the shared albums are only transferring at an optimized sized for sharing.


How did you check the sites in your Photos Library on your Mac? Did you look at the Info panel or drag and drop a photo to the desktop and looked in the Finder?

Jul 20, 2015 5:17 AM in response to léonie

Hi leonie,


I checked the sizes on iPhoto library on Mac by dragging and dropping. I have just checked again and to my surprise it is only the dragged and dropped video which is 720p. when I right click and get info straight from iPhoto library the video is indeed the full resolution.


Just as an aside why would dragging and dropping from iPhoto library to desktop produce a reduced image/video resolution?


and what is the best way to get a video from iPhoto library to desktop at full resolution?


thanks again for your time.

Jul 20, 2015 6:49 AM in response to wintersred

Just as an aside why would dragging and dropping from iPhoto library to desktop produce a reduced image/video resolution?

Dragging and dropping exports previews at a reduced resolution. If you want to export the original files use "File > Export > Export unmodified original".


Or hold down the options key while dragging. That should also export the original.

videos and photos taken on iPhone and then automatically downloaded to iMac (using iCloud) not full resolution

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