As of today, all of my iCloud Photos are gone?!?

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Level 1

9 points

As of today, all of my iCloud Photos are gone?!?

As of today, all of my iCloud Photos are gone. I have no idea what happened. When I open Photos on any of my devices, they are blank. I have no idea what happened. I opened and used the Photos App on my Macbook a few times since it installed, everything seemed ok. I imported a few batches with no issues. I opened Photos today and nothing was there. Then I checked the cloud and all the other devices and it's all gone!

MacBook Pro (13-inch Mid 2010)

Posted on Aug 2, 2015 12:08 PM

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Answer 1

léonie

Level 10

200,699 points

Aug 2, 2015 12:23 PM in response to Rickymcninja

Are you using the same Apple ID as before?

Have you deleted photos on any of your devices that are syncing with iCloud Photo Library?

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Answer 2

Rickymcninja Author

Level 1

9 points

Aug 2, 2015 3:47 PM in response to léonie

Yes, same apple ID. My iPhone storage became full, so I imported the photos and deleted them from my device.

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Answer 3

léonie

Level 10

200,699 points

Aug 2, 2015 4:05 PM in response to Rickymcninja

When you delete photos from devices that are syncing with iCloud Photo Library, the photos will be deleted from iCloud as well.And then from all devices, that are syncing with iCloud Photo Library. You must not delete photos from any device, if you are using iCloud Photo Library. The photos will be deleted everywhere.

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Answer 4

Rickymcninja Author

Level 1

9 points

Aug 2, 2015 4:20 PM in response to léonie

But only a fraction of the photos in my iCloud stream were on my device. There were photos in my photstream that went back years and were not on my device. I deleted the some recent photos from my phone, now my entire photo stream is gone.

Before Photos, I would import my pictures from my phone with iPhoto, then delete them from the device. Then they would all be on my Mac and in the stream. Does it not work like that anymore?

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Answer 5

léonie

Level 10

200,699 points

Aug 2, 2015 10:31 PM in response to Rickymcninja

I deleted the some recent photos from my phone, now my entire photo stream is gone. ....

Before Photos, I would import my pictures from my phone with iPhoto, then delete them from the device. Then they would all be on my Mac and in the stream. Does it not work like that anymore?

My Photo Stream cannot be used to store photos permanently. iCloud only stores the photos that have been added during the last month for the photo stream, and at most 1000 photos. The devices may keep more, depending on the storage. But if you reset the stream by signing out of icloud and back, the devices can only download the last months worth of photos from iCloud.

And since the iOS8 upgrade it is no longer possible to delete selectively from the device and My Photo Stream, if you delete from the device, you will delete from iCloud as well.

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Answer 6

Rickymcninja Author

Level 1

9 points

Aug 3, 2015 6:32 AM in response to léonie

Wow, so there's no way to get them back? How do you remove photos from your device to free up storage without losing them?

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Answer 7

LarryHN

Level 10

106,142 points

Aug 3, 2015 9:31 AM in response to Rickymcninja

If you are using iCloud Photo library (and I'm not sure if you are or not) then your library is on iCloud and every change you make to it any place (including additions, deletions and edits) it is reflected everywhere

With ICPL you do not delete photos from you phone - you set the Phone preferences to use optimized version on the phone to conserve space

as to getting them back - if they were imported into the Mac then restore your Photos library from when there were there - and you might be able to restore your phone backup if you are backing using iCloud backup on your phone

once they are deleted the only way to get them back is to restore a backup of them

LN

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