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Should I use iCloud Photo Library?

Tallguyinden

Tallguyinden

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 26, 2015
5
2
Morrison, Colorado
I have 41,000 photos on my iMac Photos library. I have an iPhone 6s and iPad Air (wifi only). Most photos are transferred when traveling to my iPad which then transmits them to Photostream when I have wifi access, usually in a hotel room. When I get home they are transferred via Photostream to my iMac. I edit photos on my iPad and create albums on my iPad, both while traveling. I would like the edited photos and albums to be transferred to my iMac Photos library which is my primary repository. This does not happen now, but I understand that it would work if I sign up for iCloud Photo Library. Is this correct? I hesitate to sign up for it because of the expense but am coming around to thinking it is the most convenient option. I use time machine to back up the photos and Flickr Uploader (which will now cost money).

If I sign up for iCloud Photo Library I assume my photos are accessible only when I have cell service with my iPhone or in the case of my iPad, when I have wifi. I want certain albums available on my iOS devices all of the time. I currently sync them from the iMac using iTunes. Would I still do this if I was using iCloud Photo Library or is there another way?

When I get home from a trip I want to delete many of the photos from my iPad to clear up space. If I use iCloud Photo Library can I delete them from my iPad camera roll after they are on the iMac Photos library without them being deleted everywhere?

Thanks for any advice!
 
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I've been using Macs since iPhoto 1.0. Over time Apple has changed the way to store files on their servers. The last change that I went through was moving from .Mac to MobileMe then to iCloud. Somewhere in those changes I added an external drive for backing up images. I like having options of retrieving my photos. I also back up to DVDr. But I know that will change down the road too.

You should find a system of backing up and storing your photos. I would not just leave them on the Cloud and on a Mac. When you travel you can also use an external drive. When you get home dump them onto your iMac for editing and whatever else.
 
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Yeah, going to second that "the cloud is not a backup". iCloud Photo Library is neat and convenient for a lot of things, but you should really keep a local backup somewhere under your control.
 
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I can see a cloud dump as secondary backup....maybe. But my prime library (documents, photos, music, movies,...etc) and the overall file system backup are all local encrypted disks.
 
The differences between the old iPhoto system and Photos are kinda subtle, but important.

The iPhotos/Photostream and/or iTunes synching gave you more control over what went where, but it was more like managing images in three places: Mac, iCloud, mobile. Photos is more seamless, which is another person's way of saying "less customizable." It basically keeps Mac, iCloud Photo Library, and mobile in sync so that each mirrors the other (although it does some voodoo with storage space, etc). Your whole Photos System Library syncs.

So it's nice that the images changed on your Mac show those changes on your mobile. But, like some RAID systems, that's NOT backup, even though it's maybe three copies. Because the changes propagate, that means if one images gets wrecked that wreckage gets passed to the other two copies. Uh oh; got a TM backup? At least if you delete it gets deleted on all devices BUT Photos keeps a kind of timed backup for undoing oopsies like that.

There are tons of other choices to look at to achieve much the same results, some cheaper, some more expensive, some free. Amazon, Google, Dropbox, etc all wanna sell you space and all I think are cheaper than Apple right now, although the features differ. And if you don't need online storage, look at Mylio, free for a certain number of images and three devices. Much better for synching IMHO, but YMMV.

I'd suggest Lightroom too, but Lightroom Mobile is more of a Mac TO mobile solution; it doesn't work as well in the other direction.
 
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I have backed up my photos to Flickr and also have a separate hard disk backup that I store at an offsite location. I often need to delete photos after I have uploaded them to my iPad during travels. This is after they have been synced onto my Mac Photos. It appears that deleting them from either my iPad Camera Roll or Photostream only removes them from all Photostreams on each IOS and MAC devices. The photo remains in the Photos app on the MAC. Is this correct?
 
Tallguyinden said:
I have backed up my photos to Flickr and also have a separate hard disk backup that I store at an offsite location. I often need to delete photos after I have uploaded them to my iPad during travels. This is after they have been synced onto my Mac Photos. It appears that deleting them from either my iPad Camera Roll or Photostream only removes them from all Photostreams on each IOS and MAC devices. The photo remains in the Photos app on the MAC. Is this correct?
Click to expand...

No, it will delete the photo everywhere, there is an option to store originals or optimised images on each device. You would want to have originals selected on the mac and optimised on the iOS devices, this way it will keep a preview on the iOS devices and a full version on the mac/icloud.
 
Unless I also had a physical backup drive in a location physically accessible to ME (i.e., a drive I can "pick up and hold in my hands"), I wouldn't trust ANY "cloud" backup in any way, shape, or form.

But that's just me.
 
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At least if you go with iDrive company, they will send you a disk to load and ship to them. They put it on a server and then you do incremental backups. Trying to do an initial upload of the backup if you have a multiple TB file system would take forever and be painful.
 
I have 76k photos (hobbyist for many years - no not good). I use Google Photos as my primary location where my photos reside. I LOVE how Google Photos lets me clear out photos on my phone but keeps them accessible on the cloud - I do this a lot out of habit (bad habits).

I dislike iCloud Photos because it won't let me delete photos locally on my phone and keep them in the cloud. Same for my 128GB Macbook Air... This was HUGE for me when I had my 16gb iPhone 4s and 5 (why I went to Google for Photo Storage). Now that I have a 128GB iPhone 6s+ I delete photos locally out of habit. I have Google Drive installed on my Mac Mini and it downloads all Google Drive (and Photo) files to my Mac Mini's hard drive. I also have Spannings (http://spanning.com/) backing up my Google Drive daily.

I wish I could upload my 76k+ photos to iCloud Photos and tell it not to download them to my phone. I pay for 200GB with iCloud even though I'm only using 1.2GB of it.

What do I do now on my iPhone?

OneDrive with my 365 subscription (10TB) - I back up my photos with that app every few days (46GB+) as "another backup."
Google Photos (primary place where my photos are). Out of habit I use this app to delete all local photos off my phone monthly.

I recently turned on iCloud Photos because I recently got a 6s+ and I want another place to backup my Live Photos (Google backs them up but I can't share them yet). Hopefully by the time I have xx gb of photos stored on iCloud Photos they'll catch up with features.
 
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BigMcGuire said:
I have 76k photos (hobbyist for many years - no not good). I use Google Photos as my primary location where my photos reside. I LOVE how Google Photos lets me clear out photos on my phone but keeps them accessible on the cloud - I do this a lot out of habit (bad habits).

I dislike iCloud Photos because it won't let me delete photos locally on my phone and keep them in the cloud. Same for my 128GB Macbook Air... This was HUGE for me when I had my 16gb iPhone 4s and 5 (why I went to Google for Photo Storage). Now that I have a 128GB iPhone 6s+ I delete photos locally out of habit. I have Google Drive installed on my Mac Mini and it downloads all Google Drive (and Photo) files to my Mac Mini's hard drive. I also have Spannings (http://spanning.com/) backing up my Google Drive daily.

I wish I could upload my 76k+ photos to iCloud Photos and tell it not to download them to my phone. I pay for 200GB with iCloud even though I'm only using 1.2GB of it.

What do I do now on my iPhone?

OneDrive with my 365 subscription (10TB) - I back up my photos with that app every few days (46GB+) as "another backup."
Google Photos (primary place where my photos are). Out of habit I use this app to delete all local photos off my phone monthly.

I recently turned on iCloud Photos because I recently got a 6s+ and I want another place to backup my Live Photos (Google backs them up but I can't share them yet). Hopefully by the time I have xx gb of photos stored on iCloud Photos they'll catch up with features.
Click to expand...


Why do you care about the photos using local space. Photos frees up space as needed on the hard drive. You shouldn't have to think about it.
 
rick98761 said:
Why do you care about the photos using local space. Photos frees up space as needed on the hard drive. You shouldn't have to think about it.
Click to expand...

It's an OCD, I admit it. Now that I have a 128GB iPhone I shouldn't worry about this. The problem I had with the iPhone using the "Optimize Photo Storage" is that Google Photos thinks that this is an additional photo and I end up having duplicates in my Google Photo library. So I cannot have "Optimize Photo Storage" turned on on my iPhone (back in the days of my 16GB iPhone).

Also SSDs have a longer life when they are less full so I would like the ability to store stuff in iCloud Photos without having to sync it to my 128GB Macbook Air and have it take tons of space - Dropbox allows this, OneDrive allows this, Google Drive/Google Photos allows this - iCloud needs to allow this (the ability to leave things in the cloud and not sync ALL of it).

As someone who has 76,000+ Photos (and hundreds of videos) - I choose Google Photos because I can store that 50+GB of data in the "cloud" without syncing it to all my computers (Macbook Air/iPhone) but it is stored in the cloud and I choose to download it to my Mac Mini because it has a 1TB drive, but not my Macbook Air or my iPhone/iPad - but EASILY accessible via Google Photos app.
 
I'm getting fed up with Apple Photos. I've had my Mac for 6 months, and I'm still not sure how to maneuver my photos from their storage to some way I can use the photos in other apps or the web on my desktop.

I open an upload dialog box in Wordpress, for example, and I don't have access to my photos. I can't drag and drop from Photos into a browser or app. What gives? I'm thinking I'm better off paying for extra storage through Dropbox.
 
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BigMcGuire said:
The problem I had with the iPhone using the "Optimize Photo Storage" is that Google Photos thinks that this is an additional photo and I end up having duplicates in my Google Photo library. So I cannot have "Optimize Photo Storage" turned on on my iPhone (back in the days of my 16GB iPhone).
Click to expand...
I had the same problem with Google Photos when Optimize Storage was on, but I found this was because I already had a backup of the full size before I turned on my iCloud Photo Library. YES when I turned on optimize storage it (Google) would upload the photos I already had backed up, but it would only do so ONE time it seems then afterwards it knows the name of both the temp. file that is there and the path of the full photo, so no more duplicates when I upload to Google Photos and also have turned on iCloud Photo Library with Optimize Storage turned on. I cannot say this is the intended behavior of the Google photos app as I was worried too that I would have doubles, but this was the case with my settings, and at the end of the day it is unlimited storage in Google, so I would rather have the same picture backup twice, even three times than to have it only go once or not at all.
 
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jgelin said:
so I would rather have the same picture backup twice, even three times than to have it only go once or not at all.
Click to expand...

Awesome thank you for that information (in your full post above). Very interesting. And agreed 100% Same here at the backed up twice, even three times. I am going to turn on iCloud Photo Library now that I got your updated info and continue to use Google Photos (primary) and OneDrive.
 
LloydChiro said:
I'm getting fed up with Apple Photos. I've had my Mac for 6 months, and I'm still not sure how to maneuver my photos from their storage to some way I can use the photos in other apps or the web on my desktop.

I open an upload dialog box in Wordpress, for example, and I don't have access to my photos. I can't drag and drop from Photos into a browser or app. What gives? I'm thinking I'm better off paying for extra storage through Dropbox.
Click to expand...

After opening the upload dialog in Wordpress choose "select files" and finder will launch. Scroll down in the sources panel to the left and you will find your Photo library. After clicking it you will get an interface to find the image you need. Use similar method in other apps.
 
mrnorwegian said:
choose "select files" and finder will launch. Scroll down in the sources panel to the left and you will find your Photo library. After clicking it you will get an interface to find the image you need. Use similar method in other apps.
Click to expand...
I just tried this and no such interface came up... clicking on the photo library only opens Photos.app and that is all. I cannot even right click to show package contents on the library in the upload dialog window. As far as my understanding there is only the export option in Photos.app, then select the exported image via Finder as a workaround to not being able to access the library this way... if you have found a way to access the library during a simple file upload, I am all ears and have been saying the lacking of such is a severe limitation.
Because of this limitation I always just airdrop to my Mac when I want to upload a photo from my phone, even though they are already there (on my Mac) just inaccessible.
 
To ble clear, I'm not talking about choosing your Photos library in the Finder window that pops up. I have another section in the very bottom of the sources list that lists different media like photos, music and movies. You dont have anything in the bottom of the sources list when choosing upload in Wordpress? (it does not appear if I just launch Finder myself). Here it is at the bottom:
screenshot.png
 
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mrnorwegian said:
To ble clear, I'm not talking about choosing your Photos library in the Finder window that pops up. I have another section in the very bottom of the sources list that lists different media like photos, music and movies. You dont have anything in the bottom of the sources list when choosing upload in Wordpress? (it does not appear if I just launch Finder myself). Here it is at the bottom:
screenshot.png
Click to expand...
Then that is not my photos library and has no connection to it. It is a media folder location, and the media so happens to be of the type photos. While My photostream, nor my iCloud library is available. Which is what this thread is about.
EDIT: it was, I just never had access to this screen.
 
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It is indeed connected to your library. After choosing that location you get a overview to browse your Photos library like this:
screenshot.png
 
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My primary photo storage / archive resides on my NAS equipped Mac Pro Server.

For convenience and sharing I use Google Photos. Their cloud and corresponding iOS iPhone / iPad app is just terrific.
 
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