Need some clarifications on Photos and iCloud

[hajime]

Hi, I have some questions about how the photo and video files in various Apple devices interact with iCloud. Anybody knows the answers?

I have taken photos and videos from my iPhone and iPad over the years. I often get iCloud full warnings from these devices so some of these files may not get synced. (Actually it was not my intention to load files to iCloud. It just got turned on by Apple by default I guess.) In the past I manually deleted some of these files from my phone and iPad. I don't know how iCloud work.

1. Do my iPhone and iCloud have some files in common but other files only available in respective devices?

2. It seems that the Photos app automatically names the files with incremental numbers. Do those numbers get reset and recycled? i.e. If I delete some or all the files from a device, will photos and videos I take later end up with the same filenames as some of the files I am going to delete?

3. Is copying ALL files and photos from iPad to an external storage connected to a Mac. Then delete all of them.
Next do the same to the files in my iPhone the best way to deal with this situation?

4. I wonder if I should drag and drop all these files to the same folder or create two folders one for files from iPad and
one for files from iPhone. Any suggestion?

 

[Mr_Brightside_@]

1. Yes
2. Shouldn‘t
3. if you want to free up space and enable syncing, yes
4. personal preference

 

[hajime]

Thanks. What is the proper way to do it for those using multiple iOS devices to take photos and videos with limited stock iCloud storage?

What do most people do if they don't want to pay for extra iCloud storage? Do they do the procedure described in Item 3?

 

[Mr_Brightside_@]

Manual computer backups

Mostly they ignore the warnings in my experience

 

[Clix Pix]

The answer is quite simple: don't use the Photos app at all, either in one's iOS devices or Mac devices.

 

[splifingate]

I don't know how iCloud work.

iCloud is a synchronization service.

If you've ever heard of "cloud" storage (or DropBox (or Google Photos (or Office 365))), it's entirely expected that one would think of 'iCloud' as a place to store/retrieve/share data. A 'space' to store things.

Yeah: it's all 'that'.

But, really, iCloud is is (primarily) a service to synchronize data/photos/info between multiple (Apple) devices.

Truly: I can personally add data to my iCloud storage space that does not directly (and immediately) get shared with all of my devices.

But, none of that is front-facing (and is not directly 'shared' amongst my devices).

I sub to the 2TB iCloud Plan, and never get any warnings.

If you're like me, and you have random videos with your feet bonking the street (or putting the toothpaste on your brush), I can only believe that you know what is 'deletable', and what is not.

I mirror copies of all my media onto external (archival) disks. Partly, to preserve "Teh Original", but mostly to ensure that the decisions I make--today--do not make the decisions I make, tomorrow, painful

 

[HDFan]

I mirror copies of all my media onto external (archival) disks.

A 3-2-1 backup strategy is the best way to make sure you don't lose any of your photos.

Assuming that all of your photos could be stored in iCloud that would certainly be the most convenient way to synch your photos between your devices. Copying and deleting files on individual devices is an invitation for lost or missed photos, at least if I tried to do that. Well worth the cost.