How do I sync photos across devices without storing any of them on iCloud

[Mr. Dee]

Hi,

I have several Apple devices, but I have no interest in purchasing additional iCloud storage. How can I maximize the 5 GBs of free space just to ensure they sync images take on each device across my MacBook Pro, iPhone X, 6s and iPad Pro?

I don't need to keep them on iCloud Photos. Right now, I only have 4.3 GBs of space left.

 

[akash.nu]

You can’t magically fit more into a certain storage size. You can only manually remove pictures / videos from your devices and store somewhere else to stay within 5GB & have the data sync across your devices.

iCloud storage is dirt cheap compared to all your Apple devices. If you want a hassle free low maintenance mechanism then buy some of that storage.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

You can use other cloud storage solutions, dare I even say google photos. The iCloud upgrade is worth the 99 cents each month, as it is an integrated solution for Apple products. Other services may be free, but they cost you in other ways. Personally, I don’t want google combing through my files, OneDrive is less reliable, and Dropbox is more expensive. If you don’t like those, then you have to manually sync with cables. Or, for less than $12 a year, something does all that for you AND you get 50GB of cloud storage.

 

[ajf.350d]

Do you actually want them ON the devices, or just availabe for viewing?
One thing I do after I have edited the ones I like is upload them to Flickr. Keep the album(s) private, but I can then see them anywhere via the website or Flickr app.

 

[NoBoMac]

Put pics on the Mac in Photos, manually sync the iP* devices via iTunes and toggle on photo sync. Backup pictures on some schedule, say weekly.

Or as mentioned get a Google account and their cloud photo storage/sync. Or Dropbox. Or...

But no magic solution to getting around some intermediary site/machine to get move between devices.

 

[mtbdudex]

I 100% agree the $12/year for 50GB iCloud storage is truly a steal and seemless.

Now I do use google photos for my web forum hosting, and that does enable me to have others view albums I mark as private or only if they have the link, still not seemless and requires one to upload them, organize them, etc.

 

[robgendreau]

Mylio. It can synch images across multiple devices but doesn't require any cloud storage to do so. And you can decide to sync full-sized or just previews or thumbnails. And to synch some stuff and not others. Free for JPEGs up to a certain amount and I think three devices (which can be iOS, macOS, Android, NAS, etc); paid for RAWs and more devices.

Lightroom's mobile device in conjunction with Lr Classic can synch selected collections of images from Lr Classic on say a desktop to mobile devices and another computer running Lr CC (which is a different Lr than Lr Classic). It syncs smart previews, and these don't count against Lr's online storage amounts (essentially no extra charge over what you already pay for the Photo subscription plan).

Both do selective synching, so you avoid the "everyone in the pool" problem of Photos.