Pictures on iCloud

[S32144]

Today I finally loaded iCloud onto my PC and my pictures started loading from my iPhone (I don't know how that happens, but....). I have 563 photos on photo stream but only 340 downloaded to my PC. I took a picture and watched as it loaded onto my PC, so I don't understand why the rest of my pictures haven't loaded. Any suggestions from the iCloud tech geniuses???

 

[Fausty82]

Today I finally loaded iCloud onto my PC and my pictures started loading from my iPhone (I don't know how that happens, but....). I have 563 photos on photo stream but only 340 downloaded to my PC. I took a picture and watched as it loaded onto my PC, so I don't understand why the rest of my pictures haven't loaded. Any suggestions from the iCloud tech geniuses???

Photos only "live" in the cloud for 30 days... and there’s a limit of 1000 photos. Since you’re under that limit, I’d suggest that some of your photos may be older than 30 days.

 

[S32144]

Thanks for the info. Is the 1000 photo limit for my phone or for my PC? Or both?

 

[Fausty82]

Thanks for the info. Is the 1000 photo limit for my phone or for my PC? Or both?

The 1000 photo limit is for the iCloud environment. While stuff like calendar entries and contact info live in iCloud, photos do not. The photo portion of iCloud is only used to route photos from one directed device to others... so at any time, no more than 1000 photos will be stored in that "buffer" (for lack of a better term)... and after a photo is 30 days old, it gets deleted... likewise when photo #1001 goes to iCloud, photo #1 is deleted. With that said, each device can have more than 1000 photos... but only the 1000 newest photos (from all devices) are in iCloud...

Sorry if I confused you more than I helped.

Here's Apple's support knowledge base article on the iCloud photo stream.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4486

 

[impaler]

Thanks for the info. Is the 1000 photo limit for my phone or for my PC? Or both?

Both.


Sent from my iPad using iMore Forums app

 

[S32144]

No, you helped more than confused me. I understand it now. Thanks again.

 

[anon1560286]

If I could drop my two cents on this..

For reasons mentioned above (and not to mention that iCloud restores are horribly slow) - I hope everyone who saves a ton of pics/vids to their phone regularly backs up to a computer from time to time..

My iPhone 5 was experiencing random shutoffs, etc due to some sort of 'panic' - so, I was told to set my new device (Apple replaced it) up as new and to not restore my data from iCloud (I guess as to not pollute the new hardware with possibly corrupt data)..only problem - I hadn't made an iTunes backup recently and couldn't get my pics/vids back without restoring via iCloud. So, I chanced it - and it worked - but, it took hours and is very finicky. Other users have reported that if you don't leave your phone alone for the entire restore that photos will stop restoring - amongst other various issues. Also, iCloud restores are "all or nothing" - meaning you cannot simply restore your pics/vids - you MUST restore all (potentially corrupt) apps/music/data/everything at once.

Point I'm trying to make is that iCloud is, seemingly, a terrible solution for backing up pics/vids (although a ton of people I've spoken to seem to think it'll do them good if they ever need it) - in the event you ever have a problem with your phone and need to salvage them somehow.

If you didn't know - upon plugging my iPhone into my MacBook Pro - it registers as if it is a digital camera - and with one click of the 'import' button - it will save all pics/vids to my laptop to the destination folder of my choosing. For a few hundred items the other day - it took maybe a minute or so, probably less.

So, although, the problem I experienced might not be common - you might want to take the few minutes every so often to back up your stuff.