How does iCloud Photo Library REALLY work?

[gwhizkids]

I have no idea what you mean. iCloud is permanent storage. Your files and photos are in the cloud and on any synced devices until you delete them from any device, at which point they are removed from all devices. Dropbox works the same way. If I open the Dropbox photo folder and delete a photo, it's removed everywhere.

The only thing I can think of that you could be talking about is that Dropbox is not integrated as tightly with your phone's camera roll. Removing a photo from the camera roll won't remove it from Dropbox. This is more due to API limitations than anything, and Dropbox offers a feature that will automatically remove photos from your phone's camera roll when space gets low.

So yeah, I'm thoroughly confused what you're thinking. All these cloud services have the same approach: your data is in the cloud and can be accessed from any device. What data is local vs remote is largely irrelevant. Apple's solution integrates very tightly with the built-in photos app, as you would expect, while third-parties don't have the same level of seamless access.

I think what he (and I) are really saying is that iCloud has serious limitations for people with large photo libraries and limited phone capacity. For those of of us in that position, we are stuck with having thousands of thumbnails on our phone with no way to delete them without also deleting the "master" copy up in iCloud. That's a real problem. For me, I have a company issued phone and its 16Gb...nothing I can do about it. I also have a photo library of 50,000+ photos (many of them DSLR photos imported into iCloud). It simply isn't feasible for me to have all those photos show up on my phone. If I did, I would be perpetually out of memory. My solution: turn off iCloud Photo and use Google Photos instead. Although this works, it keeps me from using a desirable feature in the Apple ecosystem.

 

[andreyirra]

To me the greatest problem is privacy. I have albums in OSX that I dont want uploaded but it's all or nothing. And we all now how useless the hide photos option is.

My current solution is having 2 libraries. With iPhoto everything was hidden from everywhere unless I enabled it.

 

[bushido]

This shouldn't be necessary. Why are you doing this? Are you running out of space?

i am weird like that, must be a OCD thing or something but i hate it when my iPhone space runs below 20 GB just as i hate it when my MacBook runs below 50 GB. I have to check what may cause and delete it

 

[gordon1234]

Technically, if someone rifles through my phone and deletes pictures, because I have it synced to iCloud Photo Library it wouldn't be "saved to the cloud", whereas Google Photos it would.

Unless they open the Google Photos app and delete it there as well. Same exact situation, 2 different app names.

 

[Statusnone88]

Unless they open the Google Photos app and delete it there as well. Same exact situation, 2 different app names.

The only people going through my phone would be female companions (I've got nothing to hide) and historically speaking, the ones I attract usually aren't very tech savvy so I doubt they'd think I have pictures in multiple places.

But yes. 100% right. That's why having iCloud Photo Library be a straight back up instead of a "mirror" would be perfect.

 

[gordon1234]

The only people going through my phone would be female companions (I've got nothing to hide) and historically speaking, the ones I attract usually aren't very tech savvy so I doubt they'd think I have pictures in multiple places.

But yes. 100% right. That's why having iCloud Photo Library be a straight back up instead of a "mirror" would be perfect.

What does that even mean though? You want it so it's impossible to delete photos from cloud library?

 

[Statusnone88]

What does that even mean though? You want it so it's impossible to delete photos from cloud library?

No, was just responding directly to your comment about someone going into Google Photos to delete something.

I want a physical copy on my device. I want a cloud copy in iCloud. Not a hard copy that's mirrored on a server (iCloud photo library).

 

[NazgulRR]

If it helps I can tell you that I have 42,000 iCloud photo library pics and it's using up about 8GB on my iPhone, this is a combination of mostly optimized thumbnails and whatever photos have been downloaded back to the phone. I also have 'upload to My Photo Stream' enabled although I am not sure if there's any point in having this switched on or if it's causing any space to be wasted.

Out of curiosity - how much available space do you have on the iPhone?

Also, how is the performance on an iPhone with such a huge library?

 

[megalaser]

My main frustration with iCloud photo library is that (as far as I know) there is no way to prevent videos from being included with the photo uploading. I am using a 6S and 4K video files are huge, I can see this using up a lot of my battery uploading and using up my iCloud storage space when in fact I only want to copy these to my Mac, not store then in the cloud.

 

[gordon1234]

No, was just responding directly to your comment about someone going into Google Photos to delete something.

I want a physical copy on my device. I want a cloud copy in iCloud. Not a hard copy that's mirrored on a server (iCloud photo library).

So, If I'm understanding you right, wouldn't you end up with essentially two copies of your photo? One local-only, and one local/cloud? That was kind of the problem iCloud set out to solve…

 

[GuilleA]

I have to say I dislike Apple's implementation of this. As far as I can tell, there's no way to remove one or more photos from your phone without also having it be deleted from the cloud as well. There are times I'd like to have a fresh start in my phone without losing all the photos I've already taken. Would love to have someone tell me I'm wrong about this...

Well, I solved this problem by creating several libraries. I started off fresh with an empty library for iCloud Photo Library, mainly because I have poor upload bandwidth and wanted a clean slate.

I create a photo library for each year, this way the main Photos library (the one synced) stays lean and only with the most recent photos.

 

[Statusnone88]

So, If I'm understanding you right, wouldn't you end up with essentially two copies of your photo? One local-only, and one local/cloud? That was kind of the problem iCloud set out to solve…

Yes. And you're 100% right... That was a huge issue in the past and I actually forgot what a mess iCloud and photo management used to be like.

I guess I'd rather have it the way it is. Auto upload my photos to iCloud, and if my phone gets lost, stolen, or damaged, I won't lose any of my photos.