{"id":30686,"date":"2020-03-19T14:02:25","date_gmt":"2020-03-19T18:02:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tcn.tidbits.com\/?p=7685"},"modified":"2020-03-17T22:09:28","modified_gmt":"2020-03-18T02:09:28","slug":"how-to-choose-between-icloud-photos-and-my-photo-stream","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/how-to-choose-between-icloud-photos-and-my-photo-stream\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Choose Between iCloud Photos and My Photo Stream"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For quite a few years, Apple enabled users to download their iPhone or iPad photos to their Macs with a service called My Photo Stream. It wasn\u2019t perfect, but it was free, and it did a decent job of ensuring that photos you took on your iPhone or iPad would end up on your Mac.<\/p>\n<p>Then Apple introduced iCloud Photo Library, later renamed to iCloud Photos, which is a full-featured cloud-based photo syncing service. However, because it stores all your photos in the cloud, most people need to purchase more storage from Apple to use it.<\/p>\n<p>As a result, Apple has kept My Photo Stream around, at least for most existing users. (The company says, \u201cIf you recently created your Apple ID, My Photo Stream might not be available. If My Photo Stream isn\u2019t available, use iCloud Photos to keep your photos and videos in iCloud.\u201d Huh.) For those who have a choice, which should you use? (On the Mac, you make that choice in Photos &gt; Preferences &gt; iCloud; in iOS, look in Settings &gt; Photos.)<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-7686 lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/how-to-choose-between-icloud-photos-and-my-photo-stream.png\" data-sizes=\"(min-width: 0px) and (max-width: 480px) 480px, (min-width: 481px) and (max-width: 980px) 980px, (min-width: 981px) 1024px, 100vw\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/how-to-choose-between-icloud-photos-and-my-photo-stream-1.png 980w, https:\/\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/how-to-choose-between-icloud-photos-and-my-photo-stream-2.png 480w\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"620\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 1024px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 1024\/620;\" \/><\/p>\n<h3>Cost and Storage Details<\/h3>\n<p>The key advantages of My Photo Stream over iCloud Photos are that My Photo Stream is completely free and the storage it uses doesn\u2019t count against your iCloud limits.<\/p>\n<p>In contrast, Apple gives every iCloud user 5 GB of free storage, but that\u2019s shared among all your iCloud services, like iCloud Drive and icloud.com email, so it disappears quickly. Most of us have more than 5 GB of photos anyway. You can purchase 50 GB for $0.99 per month, 200 GB for $2.99 per month, or 2 TB for $9.99 per month (<a href=\"https:\/\/support.apple.com\/en-us\/HT201238\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">prices vary slightly in other countries<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>On a pure price basis then, My Photo Stream wins. However, it suffers from other limitations that make it less compelling:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>My Photo Stream stores your photos on your iOS devices in a lower resolution to save space and transmission time. On the Mac, however, your photos download in full resolution. In contrast, iCloud Photos lets you choose on each device whether you want original images or optimized versions to save space\u2014full-resolution originals are always stored in iCloud itself.<\/li>\n<li>My Photo Stream manages only the last 30 days of photos and only the last 1000 photos. That\u2019s fine for just transferring photos from your iPhone to your Mac for permanent storage, but your other devices will be able to display only your most recent photos. iCloud Photos stores all your photos as long as you have sufficient space.<\/li>\n<li>When you edit a photo while using My Photo Stream, the edits apply only to the photo you edited, not to versions synced with other devices. With iCloud Photos, all edits you make\u2014on any of your devices\u2014sync to all the rest of your devices.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Supported Formats<\/h3>\n<p>There\u2019s another big gotcha with My Photo Stream. It supports only photos and images in JPEG, PNG, and TIFF formats, plus most raw formats. That doesn\u2019t sound terrible until you realize that it doesn\u2019t include Live Photos or any video formats. That\u2019s right\u2014My Photo Stream won\u2019t sync your Live Photos or videos from your iPhone to your Mac at all! You\u2019ll have to move them over manually in some other way.<\/p>\n<p>In comparison, iCloud Photos supports the same still image formats as My Photo Stream and adds GIF, HEIF, and more raw formats, along with Live Photos. Plus, it supports MP4 and HEVC videos. In other words, iCloud Photos will sync all your images and videos, regardless of format.<\/p>\n<h3>Supported Devices<\/h3>\n<p>Finally, My Photo Stream works on the Mac, iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Apple TV, and with Windows-based PCs. iCloud Photos extends that list to include the Apple Watch and the iCloud.com Web site. Apple Watch support likely isn\u2019t a dealbreaker for most people, but it can be useful to be able to see all your photos in a Web browser on any computer.<\/p>\n<h3>Making the Choice<\/h3>\n<p>Technically speaking, you can have both My Photo Stream and iCloud Photos turned on. However, if you\u2019re using iCloud Photos, My Photo Stream doesn\u2019t get you anything, so you should turn it off.<\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019re trying to save money and have more than 5 GB of photos, My Photo Stream works to bring most of your iPhone photos down to your Mac for permanent storage in the Photos app. Just beware that it won\u2019t sync your Live Photos or videos, and any other iOS devices you have will be limited to seeing the last 30 days or 1000 photos.<\/p>\n<p>For most people, though, iCloud Photos is the way to go. It\u2019s easily worth $12 or $36 per year for 50 GB or 200 GB of storage, it syncs all your photos and videos among all your devices, and it even syncs edits.<\/p>\n<p>(Featured image based on originals by <a href=\"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/@jontyson?utm_source=unsplash&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_content=creditCopyText\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jon Tyson<\/a> on <a href=\"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/s\/photos\/photos?utm_source=unsplash&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_content=creditCopyText\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Unsplash<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/pixabay.com\/users\/OpenClipart-Vectors-30363\/?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=image&amp;utm_content=153992\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">OpenClipart-Vectors<\/a> from <a href=\"https:\/\/pixabay.com\/?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=image&amp;utm_content=153992\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Pixabay<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Apple provides two ways of moving photos from your iPhone to your Mac: iCloud Photos and My Photo Stream. Which should you choose? We run through the pros and cons of each.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30687,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[66,39,68,405,48,5,70,79,57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article","category-blog","category-icloud","category-icloud-photos","category-ios","category-mac","category-photos","category-solution","category-tip"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/how-to-choose-between-icloud-photos-and-my-photo-stream.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6YLEm-7YW","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":28938,"url":"https:\/\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/photos-not-syncing-between-devices-properly-via-icloud-photos-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":30686,"position":0},"title":"Photos Not Syncing between Devices Properly via iCloud Photos?","author":"computeradv","date":"May 31, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"iCloud Photos (which Apple previously called iCloud Photo Library) is wonderful when it\u2019s working. Take some photos on your iPhone, and they appear on your Mac and iPad a minute later. Delete unnecessary shots and edit the others on your Mac, and your iPhone and iPad reflect those changes almost\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Apple Pros&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Apple Pros","link":"http:\/\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/category\/apple-pros\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Photos-Resume-1004x1024-1.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Photos-Resume-1004x1024-1.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Photos-Resume-1004x1024-1.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Photos-Resume-1004x1024-1.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1660,"url":"http:\/\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/share-photos-via-icloud-photo-sharing\/","url_meta":{"origin":30686,"position":1},"title":"Share Photos via iCloud Photo Sharing","author":"computeradv","date":"August 4, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"The best part of photos is sharing them, but if you don\u2019t want to put them on Facebook and risk everyone seeing them, you can use iCloud Photo Sharing to create an album that you share with just a few select people. Better yet, they can add photos to it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Blog&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Blog","link":"http:\/\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/category\/blog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/icloud-photo-sharing-photo-1080x675.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/icloud-photo-sharing-photo-1080x675.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/icloud-photo-sharing-photo-1080x675.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/icloud-photo-sharing-photo-1080x675.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/icloud-photo-sharing-photo-1080x675.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":26300,"url":"http:\/\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/how-to-clear-space-on-a-nearly-full-iphone-or-ipad\/","url_meta":{"origin":30686,"position":2},"title":"How to Clear Space on a Nearly Full iPhone or iPad","author":"computeradv","date":"February 7, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Has iOS been nagging you with the dread Storage Almost Full message on your iPhone or iPad? You\u2019ll need to clear some space before you can take many photos or download new music or videos, so click over to our blog to learn how you can free up some room.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Blog&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Blog","link":"http:\/\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/category\/blog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Clear out space on your iPhone and iPad","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Clear-space-photo-1080x675.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Clear-space-photo-1080x675.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Clear-space-photo-1080x675.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Clear-space-photo-1080x675.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Clear-space-photo-1080x675.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":28508,"url":"https:\/\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/icloud-services-being-wonky-check-apples-system-status-page\/","url_meta":{"origin":30686,"position":3},"title":"iCloud Services Being Wonky? Check Apple\u2019s System Status Page","author":"computeradv","date":"February 25, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Many Apple users rely on mac.com, me.com, or icloud.com email addresses, along with plenty of other iCloud-related services. So if you can\u2019t send or receive email, if photos aren\u2019t transferring via iCloud Photo Library, or if some other iCloud-related service isn\u2019t responding, the first thing to do is check Apple\u2019s\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Apple Pros&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Apple Pros","link":"http:\/\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/category\/apple-pros\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Apple-System-Status-page.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Apple-System-Status-page.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Apple-System-Status-page.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Apple-System-Status-page.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":30688,"url":"https:\/\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/what-to-do-if-you-run-low-on-icloud-storage-space\/","url_meta":{"origin":30686,"position":4},"title":"What to Do If You Run Low on iCloud Storage Space","author":"computeradv","date":"March 30, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Running low on iCloud storage space? Rather than automatically paying Apple for a larger iCloud plan, check out these tips on how to recover gigabytes of wasted space.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;backup&quot;","block_context":{"text":"backup","link":"http:\/\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/category\/backup\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/what-to-do-if-you-run-low-on-icloud-storage-space.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/what-to-do-if-you-run-low-on-icloud-storage-space.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/what-to-do-if-you-run-low-on-icloud-storage-space.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/what-to-do-if-you-run-low-on-icloud-storage-space.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/what-to-do-if-you-run-low-on-icloud-storage-space.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":30895,"url":"https:\/\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/how-to-back-up-an-iphone-or-ipad-with-your-mac-running-catalina\/","url_meta":{"origin":30686,"position":5},"title":"How to Back Up an iPhone or iPad with Your Mac Running Catalina","author":"computeradv","date":"June 24, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"If you prefer to back up your iOS devices to your Mac, rather than take advantage of daily automatic iCloud backups, note that in macOS 10.15 Catalina, you now do that in the Finder, not in iTunes. Here\u2019s what you need to know:","rel":"","context":"In &quot;backup&quot;","block_context":{"text":"backup","link":"http:\/\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/category\/backup\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/how-to-back-up-an-iphone-or-ipad-with-your-mac-running-catalina.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/how-to-back-up-an-iphone-or-ipad-with-your-mac-running-catalina.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/how-to-back-up-an-iphone-or-ipad-with-your-mac-running-catalina.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/how-to-back-up-an-iphone-or-ipad-with-your-mac-running-catalina.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/how-to-back-up-an-iphone-or-ipad-with-your-mac-running-catalina.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30686\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.computeradvantage.us\/v3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}