Where's my Photo Stream icon?

[jayes]

I went to icloud.com to view my photo stream pics, but I don't have an icon. I have 5 other icons, Mail, Contact, Calendar, Find my Iphone and Iwork.

I have checked my settings. Under Settings> Photos> I have turned on Photo Stream, but still can't find the icon. If it makes a difference, I am using XP which some people have said does not work with iCloud. That said, it is working with the other five items.

If I go under account settings>, advanced > on icloud.com, there is an option to erase all my photos. But of course, there are none there to erase.

Thanks for your help.

Edited to add: I fired up my Windows 7 netbook and there are only 5 icons there. No photo stream option. What am I missing?

More edits: When all else fails, read the manual. Icloud setup for windows says you should have an option for iCloud under control panel> network and internet. My Win 7 computer does not have this option. Their sample also does not show an icon for Photo Stream at icloud.com. Only the five icons I have. Although I cannot set up Photo Stream on my PC, my pics are streaming from my ipad to my iphone. Just don't know how to manage them.

 

[ghostface147]

You can't manage photostream. There is no app or site for it. It just uploads and goes.

 

[jayes]

Thanks for your reply. I think I just figured that out. I assumed I'd be able to "see" my pics in the cloud, but evidently that is not the case.

 

[Lash77]

There is a way to manage your iCloud photostream. You have to download and install the iCloud Control Pannel for Windows. Link:

Once you do this, the iCloud icon will be in your control pannel. There will also be a "Photo Stream" folder inside your "My Pictures" folder.

 

[jayes]

Unfortunately, I don't have MS Outlook and that is required for a PC to interact more intimately with iCloud.

I've actually decided to give up on Photo Sync and instead, download photos via Dropbox.

Here is my reasoning. If I have missed something important, please chime in. I'm new to Apple software and just got my iphone and ipad so I might be a little shortsighted.

At first, I went the Photo Sync route using iTunes and my iPad. I put photos into a folder on my computer and linked that folder for syncing. It went okay. Those photos showed up on my ipad. But I wanted to add more pics and for some reason, that caused duplicates. So I DEsynced.. (my own word) and started all over again. Synced again and all pics including my extra pics were there. Checked my ipad and decided there were a few pics I did not want. Nope.. can't delete from the ipad. You have to DEsync again, delete the pics online and then sync again. Admittedly I'm a newbie so if I've made this more complicated than it should be, please tell.

One of the other downsides was that I now had two copies of the same pic.. one in its regular folder and one for the folder to sync. (Did not want to sync all of the pics in regular folder and there's no way to pick and choose)

Heard about Drop Box and put it on both my computer and ipad (and iphone). Copied photos into dropbox on my computer, opened Drop Box on my ipad. Saved pics (goes into camera roll and photo stream). Opened PHOTOS program on ipad, created a new album and added the pics that were now in my Camera Roll. I can now delete any I want and move them in and out of albums. Unlike using iTunes sync folder, I can delete the original folder on my computer to free up space. The pics are still in Photo Stream, but I don't care because I have full control of the pics on the ipad. When Photo Stream fills up, it purges photos. Or if I'm impatient, I can do it manually.

Now I realize that I will have to do the same thing on my iphone.. that I can't just "sync" between the two, but realistically, I'm more apt to have more photos on my ipad, especially since it can function as a photo frame. And if I used the iTunes sync feature, it's all or nothing anyway.

Again, if I have missed something important about the way iTunes Sync works with photos, appreciate your input.