iphoto to iCloud drive

[Joely14]

Hi
I've just got my first mac and I'm a bit confused i hope someone can help ?!?!

i transfered all my photos from pc to mac in folders, i then put those photos into iPhoto, then i would like to store all these photos onto a cloud (maybe iCloud drive)

so question..........
1) can i delete the photos in the folders now they are in iPhoto ?
2) how do i transfer these photos on to iCloud drive
3) if something happens to my mac will all the photos safely be saved on iCloud drive?
4) i used to copy pictures from iPhone to folders on my pc but is this done automatically using photo stream now ?

i hope someone can help

cheers

Joel

 

[chscag]

Welcome to the Mac-Forums.

And congratulations with your first Mac.

As to your questions:

1. Do not delete the photos from iPhoto, leave them where they are.

2. Once you have iCloud drive setup correctly, it should show up as a folder in your Finder sidebar with the small icon of a cloud - "iCloud Drive". You can then drag and drop photos to the iCloud Drive.

3. Yes, iCloud Drive acts as a backup. Keep in mind that Apple gives you 5 GB for free. If you need more storage, you'll have to pay or you can use another storage facility such as OneDrive from Microsoft.

4. When you attach your iPhone to your Mac, photos can be transferred directly to iPhoto and are stored as "Events". You can further categorize them after that.

Check out the following Apple KB article and helpful information regarding storing your photos in the cloud. LINK

 

[vansmith]

If you have a lot of photos, you'll want to use something with more storage (if you want to stay free). If you can afford to do so (or are willing to), any services will work since they all offer large amounts of storage for a price. If you want to stay free, you might want to look at Google Drive or Microsoft's OneDrive, both of which offer generous (comparatively so) amounts of storage for free.

 

[dbm]

I think for your first question you are saying that you copied your photos into a 'regular' folder on your Mac as part of the migration then added all those pics to iPhoto? In that case, I believe you can delete the pics from those folders as they will now exist within iPhoto's database. I would suggest you await confirmation from someone else or test the theory with an inconsequential picture before deleting the lot.

You can currently add pics to your photostream as a short term measure, though this is a rolling 1000 pictures so they would eventually drop off the end, or you may have more than 1000 in total. This can be done in iPhoto using 'export' IIRC.

Apple is currently developing 'iCloud photos' (or is it iPhoto cloud?) and it was scheduled to have been here already. It would have provided the feature you are looking for, although there is no indication of how much capacity Apple will provide for free. The beta has been extended, and although no statements have been made by Apple a common opinion is that they are either beefing up security or doing further testing following the photo leak debacle last year.

In terms of pictures moving from your iPhone automatically, this does happen via the photostream mechanism. Any pictures you take on your phone should be transferred automatically as an event like 'January photostream' - you can then move them into specific events in iPhoto.

Welcome to the Mac world - I found it much more satisfying than Windows computing. I certainly don't miss the endless Windows updates!

 

[vansmith]

Apple is currently developing 'iCloud photos' (or is it iPhoto cloud?) and it was scheduled to have been here already. It would have provided the feature you are looking for, although there is no indication of how much capacity Apple will provide for free.

Apple is providing 5GB for free and more storage is available in differently priced tiers.

iCloud Photo Library works - it's a touch slow but it's seamless. I'm hoping that the speed improves before Apple goes live with it out of beta.

 

[dbm]

So all a user's storage (files and photos) comes out of the same 5GB bundle?

 

[vansmith]

Yep - the 5GB is for everything you put into iCloud. If you want to see the breakdown, go to System Preferences > iCloud.

The easiest way to minimize your usage if you take a lot of pictures is to disable photo syncing with iCloud Photo Library (if you use it). For me, for example, photos comprise 65% of my iCloud storage usage and I don't even take all that many pictures.

 

[dbm]

I wonder if photostream will be discontinued once this is live?

 

[chas_m]

No, but it will probably be renamed or folded into iCloud Photo Library. People found the photostream concept too confusing (have not had much issues with it myself, but I can understand some of the points where confusion has arisen).