Q: Confused about iCloud, iCloud Drive and back up?

iCloud is not a backup,

But she can browse to iCloud.com and login to photos to see if they are there. If they are not there look for and in the Recently Deleted folder. Other than that you have no real backup.

You heard wrong, it is NOT a backup, trying to pretend it is will be unsuccessful  Did you even read what I said?

iCloud Drive FAQ - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201104

Jan. 2016: Using iCloud Drive without caching files locally on computer - https://discussions.apple.com/message/29707288#29707288 - "You can turn off iCloud Drive on your Mac (system preferences > iCloud > iCloud drive > off) and access iCloud Drive via your browser at iCloud.com > iCloud Drive."

Rationale behind iCloud storage - Jan 2016 - https://discussions.apple.com/message/29713224#29713224

From a post by Limnos

It is a synchronization service, why are we arguing?

Read the iCloud Drive FAQ in the previous post to mine.

Hello Greeknymphgirl,

This may be helpful, iCloud is primarily a synchronization service. Meaning it can take the changes you make on one device and update other devices with that change so you don't have to do it on each device individually. Convenient if you have more than device. iCloud Drive is the term used for the part of iCloud that can sync files between your devices, much like Dropbox. iCloud Backup is the actual data backup part of iCloud. The sync services are not backups, just a way for your data to get to another device. It's possible an iCloud Backup or iTunes Backup may hold the pictures. Restoring your device with the backup is time consuming. You mentioned iCloud had Photos turned on. Csound1's suggestion of checking Recently Deleted on the device or checking the Photos area of iCloud.com may help to locate them.

I hope this helps you. The fact your taking this time to learn more about the device is a good thing, ignore the negative comments here. Keep in mind you can try speaking with AppleCare. They don't do data recovery but they should know where to tell look for the data.

I've been a mac user for a while now and I just FINALLY upgraded to a pro. (my poor old macbook was over 9 years old, so none of the iCloud/drive/app store actually worked on it, as it was so obsolete-ha! I was just still holding out hope that I could get a few more years out of it). I've had an iPhone for years and I'm still figuring out the cloud. The way you just described it makes perfect sense to me now.  Thanks for helping out- just wanted to give credit where it was due.