How does iCloud work?

Submitted by Zaorth t3_11ay0oc in iphone

Hi all, apologies in advance for this “dumb” question as i recently became an iPhone user.

When i was using an android, the photo would be backed up onto Google photos. Which enabled me to delete the photos on my phone and access it via Google Photos.

How does it work with the iCloud?

I’ve enabled auto-sync, but when i delete the photo from my iPhone, I can’t seem to find it on my iCloud. (Yes the photo was already uploaded onto iCloud as it showed a tick on the cloud)

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jhnyrrr t1_j9urej8 wrote

iCloud Photos is synced not backed up. Meaning, it’ll upload the photo so it’s available to view on all your Apple devices but if you remove, alter or otherwise delete a photo, it will be deleted everywhere. Same with other sets of data such as Notes, Reminders and Calendars.

iCloud Backup backs up the current state of your phone so that if you move to a new iPhone for whatever reason, you sign in and retrieve that backup in the last state it was saved in and get your stuff back as it was at the moment. It won’t retrieve an accidentally deleted photo because the action of deleted was already backed up as well.

It’s not AS confusing as it may sound but most people have a different expectation around iCloud which may cause confusion.

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Zaorth OP t1_j9ut1ak wrote

Ah. I just want to back up my photo and video. Is there any way to go about it using iCloud? Or is Google Photos the only way

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jhnyrrr t1_j9uu10s wrote

The only way to do that is to manually upload/download videos to your desired saved location (your Mac/PC, external thumb drive/hard drive etc)

For example, on your computer, if it’s a Mac there is an option in settings in the Photos App to “Download Originals”

If you wanna save them to an external source, sign into iCloud and choose the photo and download it and move it into the source.

If you wanna use iCloud Drive choose the photo and tap the Share Sheet Icon and there will be a “Save to Files” options which goes directly to iCloud Drive and the storage space you’re paying for.

Heck you can even just download Google Photos and back them up into there too.

I’m other words, there’s tons of options. They’re just mostly manual.

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Zcott t1_j9uqyqg wrote

iCloud will store full resolution versions of the local photos. If you delete it from the phone, you delete it from iCloud.

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Zaorth OP t1_j9uralx wrote

I see! Sorry for another dumb question, but since its on auto sync, all the photos/videos will take up the iCloud space instead of phone storage correct? Unless my iCloud is full only then will it affect my phone storage?

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Zcott t1_j9urpiq wrote

If you’ve selected 'optimise storage' then it'll show you thumbnails on the phone but download full res when asked. And yes, taking a photo will use both iCloud and local storage.

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Zaorth OP t1_j9us9xd wrote

I see. Is there a way for it to only be on the cloud? So it doesn’t fill up my phone storage

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paulstelian97 t1_j9veg8i wrote

You can't just manually remove from phone, but the phone WILL remove local copies if the space is low enough for it to matter.

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jure993 t1_j9ur3a2 wrote

I use google photos on apple. Same as on droid.

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ansky201 t1_j9uqzgw wrote

I switched over from Android to iPhone and I still use Google Photos on my iPhone. It works the same way as on Android and it will keep all your new photos together with your old photos.

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the_saturnos t1_j9ur3uh wrote

iCloud syncs all changes. You delete a photo from your iPhone, it's automatically deleted from iCloud. If you're looking to free up space, turn on Optimize iPhone Storage in Photos Settings. This will save full copies of photos in iCloud while saving low-quality versions on your phone, freeing up space.

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