#View my icloud photos full#
#View my icloud photos plus#
#View my icloud photos free#
#View my icloud photos mac#

Apple Watch support likely isnвЂ™t 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. iCloud Photos extends that list to include the Apple Watch and the Web site. Supported DevicesДЇinally, My Photo Stream works on the Mac, iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Apple TV, and with Windows-based PCs. In other words, iCloud Photos will sync all your images and videos, regardless of format. 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.

#View my icloud photos mac#

ThatвЂ™s right-My Photo Stream wonвЂ™t sync your Live Photos or videos from your iPhone to your Mac at all! YouвЂ™ll have to move them over manually in some other way. That doesnвЂ™t sound terrible until you realize that it doesnвЂ™t include Live Photos or any video formats.

#View my icloud photos plus#

It supports only photos and images in JPEG, PNG, and TIFF formats, plus most raw formats. ThereвЂ™s another big gotcha with My Photo Stream. With iCloud Photos, all edits you make-on any of your devices-sync to all the rest of your devices.

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.

iCloud Photos stores all your photos as long as you have sufficient space. ThatвЂ™s 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.

My Photo Stream manages only the last 30 days of photos and only the last 1000 photos.

In contrast, iCloud Photos lets you choose on each device whether you want original images or optimized versions to save space-full-resolution originals are always stored in iCloud itself.

#View my icloud photos full#

On the Mac, however, your photos download in full resolution.

My Photo Stream stores your photos on your iOS devices in a lower resolution to save space and transmission time.

However, it suffers from other limitations that make it less compelling: On a pure price basis then, My Photo Stream wins. You can purchase 50 GB for $1.29 per month, 200 GB for $3.99 per month, or 2 TB for $12.99 per month ( prices vary slightly in other countries). Most of us have more than 5 GB of photos anyway.

#View my icloud photos free#

In contrast, Apple gives every iCloud user 5 GB of free storage, but thatвЂ™s shared among all your iCloud services, like iCloud Drive and email, so it disappears quickly. The key advantages of My Photo Stream over iCloud Photos are that My Photo Stream is completely free and the storage it uses doesnвЂ™t count against your iCloud limits. If My Photo Stream isnвЂ™t available, use iCloud Photos to keep your photos and videos in iCloud.вЂќ Huh.) For those who have a choice, which should you use? (On the Mac, you make that choice in Photos > Preferences > iCloud in iOS, look in Settings > Photos.)

(The company says, вЂњIf you recently created your Apple ID, My Photo Stream might not be available.

However, because it stores all your photos in the cloud, most people need to purchase more storage from Apple to use it.ДЄs a result, Apple has kept My Photo Stream around, at least for most existing users. Then Apple introduced iCloud Photo Library, later renamed to iCloud Photos, which is a full-featured cloud-based photo syncing service. It wasnвЂ™t 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. 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.