iPhone photos synced to Macbook Pro - Will they be deleted on my laptop after disabling iCloud photo back-up?

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Level 1

12 points

iPhone photos synced to Macbook Pro - Will they be deleted on my laptop after disabling iCloud photo back-up?

Hi,

I sync the photos on my iPhone to my computer about once a week manually with the charger chord. Recently, I set up iCloud to back up the photos I keep on my computer, but it quickly ran out of storage on iCloud. I have disabled iCloud photo backup on my computer and it says I have 30 days to make sure that all of the photos backed up to iCloud are safely stored on my computer. My question is, is there a need for me to download all of the photos on iCloud back to my computer even when they were uploaded to iPhoto on my computer in the first place and every photo in iCloud was in iPhoto first? After 30 days is iCloud going to delete the photos from iPhoto as well so that I can no longer accesss them on my computer?

Thanks so much,

India

Posted on Jul 16, 2016 7:17 AM

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Answer 1

FoxFifth

Level 10

475,449 points

Jul 16, 2016 9:24 AM in response to ims147

Turning off iCloud Photo Library on your MacBook will not result in the photos being deleted from your MacBook. However if you had Photos > Preferences > Optimize Mac Storage turned on, there is a chance that some or all of the photos on your MacBook are not the full size originals and you would want to download them. See the quote below from Get help with your iCloud Photo Library - Apple Support

You can turn off iCloud Photo Library on a single device when you follow these steps:

On your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, go to Settings > iCloud > Photos and turn off iCloud Photo Library.

On your Mac, go to System Preferences > iCloud > Options next to Photos, then deselect iCloud Photo Library.

On your Apple TV (4th generation), go to Settings > Accounts > iCloud and under Photos press Select to turn off iCloud Photo Library.

If you have Optimize Storage turned on, you might not have all of your original photos and videos on your device. To download the original photos and videos on your iOS device, go to Settings > iCloud > Photos and select Download and Keep Originals. On your Mac, open Photos, choose Photos > Preferences, then select Download Originals to this Mac. Then you can turn iCloud Photo Library off. You can also select the photos and videos that you want to download from iCloud.com.

Also note that it is "iCloud Photo Library" and not "iCloud photo backup" -- it is designed to sync photos among devices and it is not designed as a backup for your MacBook. At a minimum you should use Time Machine and an external USB hard drive to backup your Mac.

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Answer 2

ims147 Author

Level 1

12 points

Jul 22, 2016 4:38 PM in response to FoxFifth

Thank you so much!

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