Photo management on iPhone, a I missing something?

[scumdogmillionaire]

Photo management on iPhone

I'm new to iPhone after a decade on Windows Mobile and struggling with photo management. I can't possibly believe Apple would have made this so difficult so I must be missing something.

So, I take photos with my phone. They get stored on the phone and my iCloud account. Phone fills up. I import photos from my phone to my PC. Seems easy enough.

Nope! You can't delete photos on the phone using the PC because you don't have permissions (supposedly because iCloud). And if you delete the photos using the phone they delete from iCloud?

What am I missing here? Your options are to either not use iCloud so you can remove them from your phone via PC or only have the pictures there that are actually on your phone?

 

[scruffypig]

Re: Photo management on iPhone

I'm new to iPhone after a decade on Windows Mobile and struggling with photo management. I can't possibly believe Apple would have made this so difficult so I must be missing something.

So, I take photos with my phone. They get stored on the phone and my iCloud account. Phone fills up. I import photos from my phone to my PC. Seems easy enough.

Nope! You can't delete photos on the phone using the PC because you don't have permissions (supposedly because iCloud). And if you delete the photos using the phone they delete from iCloud?

What am I missing here? Your options are to either not use iCloud so you can remove them from your phone via PC or only have the pictures there that are actually on your phone?

Are you using Windows as your desktop PC? With OS X, I use the default Image Capture program to manage my photos. There is a little check box "Delete after import".

 

[vincie76]

Re: Photo management on iPhone

I use Flickr to backup my photos it will give you 1tb of storage. Give it a try

 

[Beards]

Re: Photo management on iPhone

I'm new to iPhone after a decade on Windows Mobile and struggling with photo management. I can't possibly believe Apple would have made this so difficult so I must be missing something.

So, I take photos with my phone. They get stored on the phone and my iCloud account. Phone fills up. I import photos from my phone to my PC. Seems easy enough.

Nope! You can't delete photos on the phone using the PC because you don't have permissions (supposedly because iCloud). And if you delete the photos using the phone they delete from iCloud?

What am I missing here? Your options are to either not use iCloud so you can remove them from your phone via PC or only have the pictures there that are actually on your phone?

It sounds like you do not have your iPhone set up correctly.
Go to Settings/Photos & Camera and switch on the tab for iCloud Photo Library.
Next bit is important and may be where you are going wrong:-
Select Optimise iPhone Storage. This will put a much smaller file on your phone but still leave the original in the iCloud. When you want to transfer any photos to your PC the phone will send the originals from iCloud to the PC leaving the smaller photos on your phone.
The remainder of the settings should be:-
Upload to My Photo Stream ~ switched On.
Upload Burst Photos ~ Off
iCloud Photo Sharing ~ On
Summarise Photos ~ On

 

[Beards]

Re: Photo management on iPhone

Your phone shouldn't fill up that quickly. Are you sure you have it set up correctly?
Under Settings/Photos & Camera make sure you have selected Optimise iPhone Storage. This will keep a much smaller file on your phone.
Whenever you connect to your PC the phone will send the original photos from iCloud and not the smaller ones on your phone.

 

[scumdogmillionaire]

Re: Photo management on iPhone

Windows PC, and the phone isn't full yet, this is a hypothetical. Once I move pictures from my phone to my PC I want them off the phone to free up that space.

 

[scumdogmillionaire]

It just seems like iCloud isn't intended for long term photo backups. Turning that feature off and letting OneDrive deal with uploading pictures to cloud.

 

[Ledsteplin]

Re: Photo management on iPhone

I just use Box, Dropbox and OneDrive for photos storage. Works for me.

 

[Ledsteplin]

It just seems like iCloud isn't intended for long term photo backups. Turning that feature off and letting OneDrive deal with uploading pictures to cloud.

iCloud back ups and iCloud Photo Library are not the same thing. A back up will back up what is currently on your phone. Photos, Notes, app data, etc. Each time you update, it changes to what is on your phone at that moment.
iCloud Photo Library is more like permanent photos storage. I don't use it. Do you have the new iPhone iOS 9.2 guide?
Try it. Tap the link and download it. It goes straight to the iBooks app.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/iphone-user-guide-for-ios-9.1/id1035373510?at=10l3Vy

How to use iCloud Photo Library
http://m.imore.com/how-use-icloud-photo-library-ultimate-guide

 

[scumdogmillionaire]

Yes, I meant photo library, not iCloud backup as a whole. But photo library _as_ photo storage just doesn't seem feasible due to the problems I've run into.

I was thinking I could remove the photos from my device and still have them on iCloud. This doesn't seem to be how they intended it, which makes little since.

 

[Nolander07]

Yes, I meant photo library, not iCloud backup as a whole. But photo library _as_ photo storage just doesn't seem feasible due to the problems I've run into.

I was thinking I could remove the photos from my device and still have them on iCloud. This doesn't seem to be how they intended it, which makes little since.

iCloud photos is the same as using Dropbox, one drive, etc. as long as you use the optimize storage option. You see the thumbnails, but the photo is not stored on your device, it's downloaded if you want to view the full resolution photo. This is the exact same as third party cloud storage apps. The only difference is that Dropbox, box, one drive, Google photos, and others build up cache and end up taking up space on your device as well. iCloud photos manages this and the cache doesn't build up over time. Just because you see the thumbnails in the stock photos app doesn't mean they are stored locally.

I have been using this on my iPad for a while and it works well. Photos on my iPhone are stored locally and take up >7 gb, while my iPad with optimize storage uses a few hundred mb.

 

[scumdogmillionaire]

Ah, well I do like that... I didn't realize it downloaded the full when opened. The only issue there is you can't grab a local copy to your PC without then going back to iCloud. I guess I just wanted too much there Thanks guys!

 

[iN8ter]

Re: Photo management on iPhone

They make you create a whole Yahoo! account for Flickr. I prefer less "services bloat" in my life. I used to use them when they allowed you to use a Google Account for Flickr, but left once they started requiring a Yahoo! Account. These days, I'd just use Google Photos if I still had a Google Account, but I use a Microsoft Account and deleted the Google Account since I still use a Windows PC here as well. Photos is just too bad if you use any device not owned by Apple. Their Web Apps are sub-par, and the OS X app is half-baked and rife with trickery...

 

[iN8ter]

Ah, well I do like that... I didn't realize it downloaded the full when opened. The only issue there is you can't grab a local copy to your PC without then going back to iCloud. I guess I just wanted too much there Thanks guys!

Even on a Mac iCloud.com is the only way to grab the original files, unless you want to trawl through your Photos Library in Finder. If you drag any 1080p video out of Photos on a Mac, it will downscale it to 720p automatically. It doesn't ask you. It doesn't inform you. It just does it.

I haven't tried with 4K video, but it definitely does it 100% of the time to me with 1080p. The file extension isn't even the same as the original file downloaded from iCloud.com.

It's part of the reason why I am looking for a different place to sync my stuff, but third-party sync applications are terrible on iOS due to platform limitations, and use all sorts of trickery to get around it (like how OneDrive uses your GPS for its auto-backup).