Are you using iPhone? Are your photos safe? It's time you check if you are among the ones whose photos are going to be deleted this month. Apple will implement a feature in July that permanently removes an entire photo album from your iPhone. Fortunately, there is a simple method to prevent the contents from being lost forever and save them securely.
Apple announced recently that the My Photo Stream album will be permanently discontinued in July. This feature is responsible for automatically storing pictures captured within the last 30 days. So, it's time you do a few simple things to protect your photos from getting deleted permanently.
Stop Them Before They Are Lost
With the upcoming shutdown of My Photo Stream, the service has already ceased uploading new photos as of June 26. It's important to note that all content stored within the album will be permanently deleted when the service officially ends on July 26.
However, any photos that were uploaded to My Photo Stream prior to June 26 will continue to be stored in iCloud for 30 days from their upload date. These photos will remain accessible on devices where My Photo Stream is enabled.
To prevent the risk of losing any photos, it is recommended to take the following steps:
Go to the My Photo Stream album within your camera roll and save the pictures either to your device or to iCloud.
By doing so, you can ensure that your photos are securely stored and not lost when the service is discontinued.
"The photos in My Photo Stream are already stored on at least one of your devices, so as long as you have the device with your originals, you won't lose any photos as part of this process," Apple notes on its support page.
If there are specific photos that you want and they are not currently present in your library on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac, it is important to save them to the library on the respective device.
In case you are already using iCloud services, there is no additional action required. The photos saved to your library will automatically sync with iCloud and be accessible across your devices.
Not a Big Problem
By permanently discontinuing My Photo Stream, Apple emphasizes that iCloud is now considered their "best option" for securely storing and organizing all your photos and videos across multiple devices.
With iCloud, users can ensure that their media files are kept safe and easily accessible from a unified location.
My Photo Stream has provided users with a free storage option for over a decade, serving as an alternative to iCloud Photos. It allowed users to sync and access their recent photos across devices without incurring additional costs.
However, it's worth noting that the pricing for iCloud Photos has recently increased in certain countries, which may impact users' preferences for cloud storage solutions.
A TikTok money expert recently provided alternative suggestions to Apple users, advising them against paying for additional iCloud storage once they exceed the free 5 gigabytes allotted by Apple.
iCloud costs 99 cents for 50 GB of storage, $2.99 for 200 GB, and $9.99 for 2 terabytes. Instead, the TikTok money expert suggests users consider backing up their photos using alternatives such as the Amazon Photos app or their Google accounts. These services offer options for storing photos without incurring additional costs.
My Photo Stream, introduced by Steve Jobs in 2011, has been a free service that offers the convenience of automatically uploading up to 1,000 photos captured within the last 30 days.
Over the past decade, it has allowed users to access their photos across multiple Apple devices. This means that if a user took a photo on one device, such as an iPhone, they could easily find and download it on another device, like an iPad or Mac.
For those who have opted for iCloud+ and consistently have sufficient storage space for their photos, Apple's recent decision to discontinue My Photo Stream may not pose significant concerns. With ample storage through iCloud+, they can continue to enjoy a seamless experience with their photos.