iCloud: can't see my photos..

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hi,

I don't know where to post this question...

how do I view my photos in iCloud?
on iCloud.com, on browser in computer, none of the links work ("photos", etc..)

in iPhone, when in iCloud.com in a browser and click on photos it says I have no photos!! LOL.... I have thousands of photos.. in fact Apple is now sending me alerts saying I'm running out of space on iCloud (I have 50G...)

how on earth can you manage this space yourself? there are tons of photos there I want to get rid of.... thank you....
 

Rod


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Can you give us some details please;
What Mac are you using?
What macOS are you running?
What browser are you using?
Do you have iCloud Photo Library on?
Lastly, are you logged into iCloud with the same Apple ID on all your devices?


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thank you Rod...

well, my MacBook Pro is very old and so are the browsers.. so let's take that out of the equation....

but at least on the iPhone (12.4.1) I should be able to see my photos?
& on iPhone I tried both Safari & Chrome..
iCloud Library? hmmm.... I don't think so... is this something you "turn on" on iPhone?
(I just looked for it in settings.. don't see "library" anything...)

and: I just noticed this now: IT SAYS I HAVE USED 24.1 GB OF MY 50 GB AVAILABLE...
(come to think of it, I'm not getting those alerts anymore.. I don't get how this works..)

yes I log into iCloud w/my regular Apple ID.. (I don't suppose you can have more than one Apple ID....;~)

thank you for your response...
 
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this gets weirder...

just now went to iCloud.com in Chrome/iPhone and was able to see my photos.. however:

under "albums" it says I have 1,431 photos... in my iPhone under "albums" it says 4,049 photos..

?????
 
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the earliest photo I see in iCloud.com is from 2019 Oct 15..

in iPhone the earliest photo is from 2019 July 10...
 
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Go into Settings on your iPhone. Click on your Apple ID and select iCloud. When you select Photos, what options have you selected? Did you turn on iCloud Photos?
 
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yes iCloud Photos is now turned on.. I believe I turned on earlier today.. after I ran a google search.... ;~)

so now I could not retrieve from the iCloud a photo I shot before Oct 15?

this will now change with iCloud Photos turned on?

(& why did it tell me yesterday I was running out of iCloud space?)

thank you for your help...
 
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It can take a long time to sync the pictures to iCloud. I had 9000 photos take 3 weeks to complete. Sync only takes place in a deep background, so it does not interfere with anything else. You will have to be very patient if you just recently turned on iCloud for Photos.
 
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thank you MacInWin...

so you're saying before I turned on "iCloud Photos" the photos were not being backed up to the Cloud?

and what exactly does it mean to have iPhone & iCloud "synched"? If I remove a photo from the Cloud I do not want to also remove the from the phone.....
(& now the connection to internet in my iPhone (wifi and data) are incredibly slow.. and the photos don't load properly (they're all blurred) and there's a small white circle at bottom right of photo, which sometimes contains an exclamation point inside....

so all this is happening b/c my iPhone is "synching" my photos with iCloud? I would like to know exactly what this means...
I just want my photos to be backed up to the Cloud and to be able to view them and edit (remove, etc) in the Cloud...

thank you.....
 
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yikes!!

here,
Photos and iCloud

one of the respondents seems to be implying that once all is synched ALL photos in iCloud will be downloaded to my iPhone???????????? I DONT' WANT THAT!!!!!

I just want the photos to be BACKED UP to the the Cloud, that's it..... but I certainly do not want photos I have deleted in my iPhone from being downloaded to my iPhone again!!!!

I went to turn off iCloud Photos, and got this very alarming alert saying it would remove photos from my iPhone... oh brother.............. :-((((

please enlighten me here...

thank you...
 
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Don't know where my post went, so I'll enter it again.

Yes, your photos were not in the cloud until you turned on sync. If you were backing up your iPhone to the cloud and your pictures are in Photos on the iPhone, they are not backed up. See this article from Apple: About backups for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch - Apple Support

Sync means exactly that. What is done on one device is synced to all the other devices signed in to the account. So if you delete a picture on your iPhone, it will be deleted from the iCloud Photos and your Mac Photos, etc. That's how it works.

The fuzzy pictures are only partially available because they aren't fully synced yet. There is enough for an icon, but not the full picture.

While I was typing this in for the second time, I got an email from you with additional comments. Your understanding is exactly how it works. All pictures are stored on all devices (as long as there is storage available). So maybe iCloud is not for you. Others may have a better solution for you, but iCloud is a sync system, which can be a backup, but isn't designed as one. Read the document I posted.
 

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I think we better go back to your "very old MBP". As Jake has said, iCloud Photo Library is more of a Syncing service than a backup although it performs some of the same functions. If you only have the free default 50Gb storage your photos are probably going to more than fill the remaining space.
So although your MBP is old it is still the best way of controlling and storing your photo library if it remains compatible with your iPhone.
So I'll ask again what model is your MBP? Have a look under the Apple Menu on the menu bar, go to About This Mac and tell us all the info (you can leave out the serial number) that you see in my example below:

Screen Shot 2019-10-28 at 1.46.24 pm.png

If we can resurrect this MBP or at the very least download all the photos to your laptop, and there are other ways than just iTunes to do that, then we can look at a practical means of storing them, not necessarily on the laptop itself.
 
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thank you MacInWin....

1) so now I have the same no. of photos in iPhone and in iCloud... :)
I now have iCloud Photos turned on but not "Upload to My Photo Stream..."

2) can you recommend a storage/backup service that just stores a backup of all data & data files in your computer?

3) my old MPB was purchased in Sept of 2010, it's running OS 10.6.8.... screenshot:

about_this_mac.jpg
 
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I might add in my very very old MPB I cannot get to iCloud/photos in any browser:

in Chrome & FF I can log in, but no links work (I can't even log out.. I just close the tab..)

in Safari when go to iCloud.com I get a blank page...

thank you again for your help....
 

IWT


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Hi kali89

You ask two main questions. A Backup (BU) for documents/data etc for your Mac running Snow Leopard - Time Machine will do this nicely. The only expense is an External Hard Drive (EHD), ideally with a storage capacity around twice that of your Mac. Time Machine is part of the Operating System (OS).

As regards iCloud services, these are not available for your Mac as Snow Leopard (10.6.8) is not supported (see here: System requirements for iCloud - Apple Support).

Ian
 
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You can upgrade the OS on your old MBP, if you want to. However, if you have older software and need it to be compatible, you will want to see if the versions you are using, have been updated for the newer OS you may upgrade to.

How to upgrade to OS X El Capitan - Apple Support
 

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Here I'm in the dark a little because my memory of snow leopard is a little dim. Someone else can chime in here but I think that Image Capture may be able to download all your photos to your MBP. I seem to recall that Snow Leopard had Image Capture (a native app). My guess is your iPhone will not be compatible with iTunes in Snow Leopard.
If you can download your photos to the MBP then they can be backed up either using Time Machine or directly to an external USB Hard Drive.

Edit; Bob beat me to it. Yes you can upgrade your operating System to El Capitan that will make things as far as compatibility with your phone a bit easier. It will also give you access to iCloud.
 
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IWT


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@Rod

I can confirm that Snow Leopard does have Image Capture, but also confirm that the OP's iPhone will not be recognised by SL.

I say this with confidence because my dear old friend of 85 years has SL on what was once my 21 inch iMac. His iPhone, again previously mine, can only go as far as iOS 10.x and is not recognised by SL; the OP currently runs iOS 12.4.1 (post #3).

Upgrading, as Bob said, would almost certainly help matters.

Ian
 

Rod


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Thanks Ian, I thought so but it seems like a long time ago now.


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once all is synched ALL photos in iCloud will be downloaded to my iPhone???????????? I DONT' WANT THAT!!!!!

The reason I steer clear of iCloud sync. It doesn't do what most of us want it to do, but what some geek who does not live in the real world, in Apple THINKS might be a good idea. Several friends have been caught out when their phone memory has become full and they have deleted photos from their phone in the sure and certain knowledge that they have been copied to iCloud only to find that they have been lost forever. I used to try to fathom out exactly what settings were needed (with help from this site, Apple and other forums) but now tell all that ask to ignore the cloud as far as photos are concerned and save images manually to your computer.
 

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