Thousands of photos and not stored!

[Timetobecomeveggie]

Help!!! I have thousands of photos on my phone. We have several children and there’s just so many.

We have them backed up on a cloud but am I right in thinking if you delete them on the phone they get deleted from the cloud too?

I know this is an accident waiting to happen. I did once try to back up to Google photos which I liked. But it would probably cost a fortune and it just got to a certain point after hours and then froze.

Please help me sort this at last!! Is an external drive better - I know it will take days!!!!

[DollyParsons]

I'd love to know the answer to this. I'm in the same boat!

[Brumbies]

Get an external drive and back them up! Two external drives in fact, because they can malfunction. I always back up to my laptop and two external drives.

[Dbank]

I may be able to help, what type of phone is it and do you know how many GBs or photos ?

[Rocknrollstar]

Yes. If you delete from your phone, the photos go from the cloud. You need to buy an external drive and back them up.

[Badabingbadabooom]

@Brumbies

Get an external drive and back them up! Two external drives in fact, because they can malfunction. I always back up to my laptop and two external drives.

Beware – I’ve saved loads of photos from an iphone on external storage – laptop, usb, etc. And although they successfully save, when you later look back the photos have mostly disappeared. I’m trying to understand how this happens. Clearly apple doing something to discourage migration away from their paid storage facility.

[Dbank]

how did you copy them from the phone to external storage?

[Badabingbadabooom]

@Dbank

how did you copy them from the phone to external storage?

I think with USB onto laptop

[Dbank]

Perhaps some of the images were only on iCloud, might be worth logging in to iCloud.com and checking.

[Badabingbadabooom]

@Dbank

Perhaps some of the images were only on iCloud, might be worth logging in to iCloud.com and checking.

I don’t understand?

I would definitely have removed connection and checked they’d all been saved before deleting pics from phone.

It’s later when I’ve looked back that they’re not there.

[Traumdeuter]

I’ve always used Dropbox - it uploads from both laptop and phones/tablets - and then backed up to external drive. Works well.

[Badabingbadabooom]

@Dbank

Perhaps some of the images were only on iCloud, might be worth logging in to iCloud.com and checking.

Do icloud basically own your images or something?

[Dbank]

If your iPhone was set to "Optimise Storage" in settings > Apple ID > iCloud > photos. Then some of your images may only be on iCloud. (even if you may see a preview on your iPhone)

If you want them on the phone (so you can copy them off via USB) they set the option to "Download and keep Originals" and ensure the sync has completed before copying via USB. Or follow my suggested steps upthread.

You retain ownership of the images on Apple iCloud.

[mynamechangemyrules]

Haven't read the full thread

Relied on Apple and my phone died through a routine update (enforced by them) and photos were all lost. Post divorce where my ExH took every single thing so I have no photos of them at all from 0- now.

Long long story short: Google photos! I only pay £2.99 a month and it stores all from mine and kid's phones. Every.single.fucker told me this after the event like I should've known it- infuriating! So get ahead of the game 😂
(I have Apple everything btw and that's why I'd held off I think... but it works fine with everything Apple)

[Dbank]

RTFM

[Badabingbadabooom]

@mynamechangemyrules

Haven't read the full thread

Relied on Apple and my phone died through a routine update (enforced by them) and photos were all lost. Post divorce where my ExH took every single thing so I have no photos of them at all from 0- now.

Long long story short: Google photos! I only pay £2.99 a month and it stores all from mine and kid's phones. Every.single.fucker told me this after the event like I should've known it- infuriating! So get ahead of the game 😂
(I have Apple everything btw and that's why I'd held off I think... but it works fine with everything Apple)

Thank you! And so sorry that happened :(

[Badabingbadabooom]

@Dbank

If your iPhone was set to "Optimise Storage" in settings > Apple ID > iCloud > photos. Then some of your images may only be on iCloud. (even if you may see a preview on your iPhone)

If you want them on the phone (so you can copy them off via USB) they set the option to "Download and keep Originals" and ensure the sync has completed before copying via USB. Or follow my suggested steps upthread.

You retain ownership of the images on Apple iCloud.

Thanks for this, I’ve just changed this setting.

Although under the ‚optimise storage‘ option, it says just that the files will be stored as smaller device-sized versions rather than full resolution (if the device is low on space). Not that they will not be saved at all. And when I’ve saved pics externally (hard drive), they have appeared to save as normal and it has still been possible to open and view them etc, after the external drive is disconnected from both the phone and icloud.

It’s been later on – months later – that they seem to just no longer exist. Why do they behave like saved files then disappear??? Is it possible to retrieve them somehow?

[Badabingbadabooom]

Just spoken to apple and they’ve said this is nothing to do with them, files once saved elsewhere have been successfully copied from the phone, so the issue should be investigated wrt the device where they were saved.

[Dbank]

@Badabingbadabooom

Thanks for this, I’ve just changed this setting.

Although under the ‚optimise storage‘ option, it says just that the files will be stored as smaller device-sized versions rather than full resolution (if the device is low on space). Not that they will not be saved at all. And when I’ve saved pics externally (hard drive), they have appeared to save as normal and it has still been possible to open and view them etc, after the external drive is disconnected from both the phone and icloud.

It’s been later on – months later – that they seem to just no longer exist. Why do they behave like saved files then disappear??? Is it possible to retrieve them somehow?

Log into iCloud.com and see if they are there?