Few questions on iCloud Photo Library before pulling the trigger

[EC99SS]

Hi all
I'm new to iCloud Photo Library and looking into this, however nervous to pull the trigger. I'm hoping you can help answer a few questions for me.

1) What happens when I turn on iCloud Photo Library? Will the images on my phone and ipad be automatically replaced with low resolution versions (if I opt not to have the full res versions)?

2) From what I understand I get thumbnail version on my phone and if I want to see the pic I tap on it and it downloads the full version. What, if in the future, I want to save space on my phone and have all pics as thumbnails again. What do I do to the ones that were downloaded from iCloud Photo Library? I don’t think I want to delete it, otherwise it deletes it across all devices.

3) If I take a pic on my phone or save one from email/text/internet, does it save as a full res on my phone or does iCloud Photo Library convert it into a thumbnail once it sync to the cloud (ie another space saver question).

4) If I delete a photo on my phone, it deletes from iCloud Photo library. Now normally to fully delete a picture on the phone I have to go to the deleted folder and delete again. Do I have to do this in iCloud Photo Library somewhere as well?

5) On my phone if I create an album and put pictures in there it still has the picture in my camera roll (ie two places). Is this still the case if I use iCloud Photo Library?


Thanks all. Sorry for all questions.

 

[Brookzy]

1) What happens when I turn on iCloud Photo Library? Will the images on my phone and ipad be automatically replaced with low resolution versions (if I opt not to have the full res versions)?

When you turn on iCloud Photo Library on all your devices, each device uploads its photos to iCloud into one common library, and downloads the photos from all your other devices.

The pictures on your phone will only be replaced with low-resolution versions if you are very low on storage space and Optimise Storage is on. The oldest, largest, and least-viewed images and videos are downgraded first.

2) From what I understand I get thumbnail version on my phone and if I want to see the pic I tap on it and it downloads the full version. What, if in the future, I want to save space on my phone and have all pics as thumbnails again. What do I do to the ones that were downloaded from iCloud Photo Library? I don’t think I want to delete it, otherwise it deletes it across all devices.

The only way to replace images with thumbnails is through Optimise Storage - you cannot manually force it. But, with optimise storage on, there should never be a need to do it yourself - if you need the space, the images will be replaced with thumbnails automatically.

3) If I take a pic on my phone or save one from email/text/internet, does it save as a full res on my phone or does iCloud Photo Library convert it into a thumbnail once it sync to the cloud (ie another space saver question).

If you save an image to your phone, it is unlikely to be optimised because it is too recent (see explanation in question 1).

4) If I delete a photo on my phone, it deletes from iCloud Photo library. Now normally to fully delete a picture on the phone I have to go to the deleted folder and delete again. Do I have to do this in iCloud Photo Library somewhere as well?

Your recently deleted folder syncs like everything else, so there is no change from the normal procedure.

5) On my phone if I create an album and put pictures in there it still has the picture in my camera roll (ie two places). Is this still the case if I use iCloud Photo Library?

Yep.

 

[EC99SS]

Brookzy
Thank you so much for the informative responses. This truly helps. I really appreciate the assistance.

Thanks
EC

 

[zorinlynx]

Brookzy
Thank you so much for the informative responses. This truly helps. I really appreciate the assistance.

Thanks
EC

I should add that you should make a separate backup of your photo library before turning on iCloud Photo Library, just in case something goes wrong. It's very unlikely but your iCloud storage should never be the only backup you have.