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User profile for user: railroadman
railroadman Author
User level: Level 1
4 points

Problems with turning iCloud photos off

Want to stop using iCloud Photos. When deleting a photo or video from either of my devices, iPhone 6 & iPad air, they get deleted from my Mac also. I want to go back and to importing my devices photos directly to my Mac and then delete them from my devices when I chose to. iCloud Photos operate as I understood it to when I turned iCloud Photos on. Plus, when viewing Photos in my iCloud account, it has been updating for a least 4 days with never adding to the number of Photos in iCloud. This could all because I may not have understood how iCloud worked. It all started when my iPhone Photos was almost full. I updated my iCloud storage to 1TB and have 800 GB unused. I want to return all my photos to my Mac and close out iCloud.

iMac (27-1 inch, Mid 2010) 2.93 GHz Intel Core i7, 16GB 1067 MHz DDR3 Memory, 2 TB SATA Disk, OS X Ei Capitan, Version 10.11.3

Posted on Feb 11, 2016 12:59 PM

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User profile for user: FoxFifth
FoxFifth
User level: Level 10
468,945 points

Posted on Feb 12, 2016 9:13 AM

See the following for instructions on how to turn off iCloud Photo Library: Get help with your iCloud Photo Library - Apple Support


The following has instructions on how to downgrade back to the 5GB free iCloud storage level: iCloud storage upgrades and downgrades - Apple Support

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User profile for user: léonie
léonie
User level: Level 10
194,871 points

Feb 11, 2016 2:27 PM in response to railroadman

The easiest way to stop using iCloud Photo Library, is to make sure, all photos have been downloaded to your Mac.

Are you using the option "Optimize Mac Storage"? Then you have first to ensure, that all photos have been downloaded to your Mac before you do anything else. Disable "Optimize Mac Storage" and wait for all photos to download.


See this Help page: https://help.apple.com/photos/mac/1.0/?lang=en#/phtf5e48489c

Stop using iCloud Photo Library


Important: If you decide to turn off iCloud Photo Library, first be sure to select “Download Originals to this Mac” in the iCloud pane of Photos preferences, so all your original photos can be downloaded from iCloud to your Mac. Be sure to allow time for your originals to download before turning off iCloud Photo Library completely.

  1. Choose Photos > Preferences, then click iCloud.User uploaded file
  2. Deselect the iCloud Photo Library checkbox to turn it off.

After you turn off iCloud Photo Library, the Photos app on your Mac can’t access your iCloud library, and any edits you make to photos on your Mac won’t appear on your other devices. Your library remains in iCloud and available to other devices that use iCloud Photo Library. To turn off iCloud Photo Library on all your devices, open the iCloud pane of System Preferences, click the Manage button, then click Photo Library. Click “Disable and delete.” Your photos and videos will be deleted from iCloud Photo Library in 30 days, unless you click Undo Delete before that time.


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Problems with turning iCloud photos off

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