Photos upload on iPhone 6 Plus

[Simol]

For the past three years, I have synced the photos on my phone with my MacBook Pro automatically, so that all photos on my Mac/iCloud and phone were the same. I recently intentionally deleted all 22,000/ 20GB of photos from my 64GB iPhone and now have photos only on my Mac.

I now want to upload recently taken photos from my phone to my Mac/iCloud. What is the setting on the phone I need? I am concerned that if I get the setting wrong, I will sync the phone to the Mac and delete all my photos from the Mac because I only have the most recently taken photos on the phone!

 

[Ember1205]

The first thing I would suggest is to back up the photos on the Mac to another storage device, preferably one that can be removed from the Mac (USB stick or similar).

What version of Mac OS X are you running and what app on the Mac are you using to 'receive' the photos?

 

[Simol]

Hi Ember. macOS Sierra 10.12.6. Photos are all backed up to a Time Capsule. Photos are 'received' in 'Photos' app Version 2.0 (3161.4.140)

Thanks for your help.

 

[Ember1205]

Great. Not sure how you were doing it in the past, but one thing you can do is simply to turn on My Photo Stream on your device (Settings -> Apple ID -> iCloud -> Photos). This will cause your device to upload full-resolution copies of all photos (not videos) into your iCloud storage for syncing to other devices (you can't log in and view them with a web browser using this setting). The uploads happen when your device is on WiFi and then will then automatically download onto your other devices including the Mac. You can drag them out of the Photo Stream to store them in other areas.

Turning this on will not cause any photos on the Mac to be deleted. Deleting the photo from your device once the sharing via My Photo Stream is turned on, however, WILL delete that specific photo from all devices if you delete it within 30 days. I believe that items older than 30 days can be deleted on the device without impacting the sync to other devices.

 

[Simol]

I had everything enabled when I uploaded/synced previously! Thanks for this advice. I will enable 'My Photo Stream' and keep the photos on my phone for 30 days or more before deleting them. I will not enable iCloud Photo Library, nor Upload Burst Photos nor iCloud Photo Sharing. I will enable just MY Photo Stream

Many thanks. Simon

 

[Ember1205]

You can delete the photos from the device much sooner if you move them out of My Photo Stream on the Mac and store them somewhere else.

Stop back in and let folks know how this works out for you. If nothing else, someone else might come along and wonder if it would meet their needs and your feedback would be valuable to them.

 

[badshoehabit]

Turning this on will not cause any photos on the Mac to be deleted. Deleting the photo from your device once the sharing via My Photo Stream is turned on, however, WILL delete that specific photo from all devices if you delete it within 30 days. I believe that items older than 30 days can be deleted on the device without impacting the sync to other devices.

Once images are shared to a Mac via Photo Stream they go in to the Photos main library and you can delete them from Camera Roll or Photostream (on either device) without losing them. This is the way I work all the time. You can't get rid of images from Photos unless you delete them from the top-line menu item 'Photos'. If you delete from an album they are still in that master library.

 

[Simol]

I have Google Photos on my Mac and the photos are going in there and not into 'Photos' Any thoughts?

 

[badshoehabit]

From Photo Stream? Thought they would only sycn with Photos, unless you transfer them manually. I would imagine that any removed from Camera Roll/PS on phone would not affect storage in the Google app as they are not connected.

 

[Ember1205]

Is the Google Photos app on the phone? It would be good to know if they're getting synced at the phone and then showing on the Mac, or if they're syncing on the Mac then showing in Photos.

 

[mrplow]

I you wanted a more manually process you can just connect you iPhone to you Mac and use the built-in Image Capture app to copy you photos and videos across.

Alternatively consider an app like PhotoSync that can automatically or manually copy them across.

As regards Google Photos - it could be running on your phone or it could be monitoring your photo folder(s) on your Mac

 

[Simol]

Google Photos is only on the Mac. It is picking up the iPhone photos and storing them in the Google Library, but 'Photos 'is not.

 

[Ember1205]

If the photos are making it into Google Photos, and that's the only place that the app is installed, then the photos ARE making it to the Mac. You'll need to figure out where they're landing...

 

[Simol]

Yep! They are in Flicker, Google Photos but not where I want them to be, in Photos. I will continue the search!

 

[badshoehabit]

Yep! They are in Flicker, Google Photos but not where I want them to be, in Photos. I will continue the search!

How to move your photos from Google Photos to Apple Photos
http://lifeinlofi.com/2017/01/06/how-to-move-your-photos-from-google-photos-to-apple-photos/

Then set up Photo Stream to sync between phone and Mac in future.

 

[Simol]

'Photostream' is enabled!

 

[badshoehabit]

...and they are going into Google Photos?

 

[Simol]

They are!

 

[Ember1205]

...and they are going into Google Photos?

The Google Photos app on the Mac seems to be "finding them" on the Mac, which would indicate that they ARE syncing. It's a matter of understanding why they aren't being see directly in the Photos app.

 

[badshoehabit]

Think this is beyond me.

My settings for Photos are thus. Possibly you have assigned Google Photos as the destination for imports. Photos > Preferences > General > Importing