My photo stream will end soon – you need to know this!
The free photo service My Photo Stream will soon come to an end. If you’re still using the service, you’ll need to switch to iCloud Photos!
Read on after the ad.
This is ‘My Photo Stream’
The My Photo Stream service has been around since 2011 and syncs photos between your iPhone, iPad, Apple TV and Mac. Secretly quite easy, but there is also a disadvantage. That sharing isn’t in full resolution, and changes to the photos aren’t straightened across all of your devices.
On the other hand, My Photo Stream is completely free and does not cost you any iCloud storage. The service uploads the 1,000 most recent photos (excluding Live Photos) and stores them for 30 days.
If you use the service, there will be an album in the Photos app called ‘My Photo Stream’. So it may be that you have never seen the service. Apple’s website states that “Photo Stream may not be available if you recently created an Apple ID.”
Switch to iCloud
It’s been clear for some time that Apple prefers you use iCloud Photos instead of My Photo Stream. The company has now announced that the service will actually disappear, as of July 26, 2023.
If you do use My Photo Stream, it is therefore important that you switch to iCloud photos in good time. In this case, on time means before June 26, 2023, because new photo uploads will be stopped thirty days earlier, so that your photo stream will actually be empty on July 26, 2023.
Using iCloud Photos
By the way, you won’t lose photos when My Photo Stream has stopped anyway, because they’re on one of your devices anyway. If you don’t plan to move to iCloud Photos, you’ll need to use something else to share your photos with your other devices.
AirDrop or e-mail are obvious. But if you do start using iCloud Photos, your photos will automatically sync across all your devices. That’s actually a lot easier…
