Users don’t need to do anything. My guess is the vast majority of iOS users are using iCloud Photos and have no idea that My Photo Stream was still around. — Image by creativeart on Freepik
This week a reader writes, “Hello Mr Rossman. I received this email from Apple and I’m not sure what it means. I already have all my photos saved automatically in the cloud and my photos are automatically saved from my Apple photos to Google photos. Does this mean the photos I take on my iPhone or iPad will no longer share to Google? Do I need to take steps to save my photos somewhere besides iCloud to avoid losing them? This email is confusing to me.”
I should note the email she forwarded is one I received as well.
It’s from Apple, and it is announcing that the My Photo Stream service will be shut down on July 26.
The message states: “My Photo Stream is scheduled to be shut down on July 26, 2023.
As part of this transition, new photo uploads to My Photo Stream from your devices will be stopped on June 26. Any photos uploaded to the service before that date will remain in iCloud for 30 days from the date of upload and will be available to any of your devices where My Photo Stream is currently enabled. By July 26, there will be no photos remaining in iCloud, and the service will be shut down.”
What is My Photo Stream?
It was a service designed to make photos taken on an iPhone or iPad to be automatically shared to other Apple devices logged into the same Apple ID.
It was limited to the last 1,000 photos taken. If you took pictures at the beach with your iPhone, they’d be synced to the My Photo Stream album in the Photos app on your other Apple devices.
It wasn’t an archive; it was simply a shared album.
My Photo Stream was created in the days before iCloud. iCloud Photos offers the same features, so keeping My Photo Stream was not necessary.
Users don’t need to do anything. My guess is the vast majority of iOS users are using iCloud Photos and have no idea that My Photo Stream was still around.
To use iCloud Photos, you to need to be running iOS 8.3 or later. (Just for reference, the current version of iOS is 16.5.)
To make sure you are using iCloud Photos, go to your iOS device’s settings, then touch where it shows your name at the top of the main settings page. Then touch "iCloud" and then make sure "Photos" is turned on. – Tribune News Service
