Photosstream Permanence

[n4uau]

I need to remove pictures from my Camera Roll to free up space and I need a permanent backup on my PC of them.

PhotoStream appears to be a great way to back up photos but is it permanent? Everything in my iPad Photostream folder shows up in my PC PhotoStream file. BUT The Apple FAQ tells me that "The photos you upload to My Photo Stream are stored in iCloud for 30 days ":

Does this mean after 30 days these photos are also removed from my PC photostream file. I think that may be the case because when I delete a photostream photo on my Pad it will also be removed on the PC so I wonder when Apple removes the photo from the icloud photostream file it will disappear from the PC.

SO if I need to have a permanent storage of my photos on the PC, do I need to copy the photos from the PC's Photostream folder to a different one or are they safe in that folder?

 

[J. A.]

PhotoStream is a way to sync photos between Apple devices, it doesn't store the photos permanently. They will be deleted as soon as

1. 30 days are over or
2. more than 1000 photos are in your Photo Stream.

The 30 day limit is there to give you the possibility to save the photos somewhere else permanently until then.

Because iCloud PhotoStream only syncs pictures and doesn't store them, the ones you remove in PhotoStream on one of your devices will be deleted everywhere else as well.

If you don't want to lose the photos forever, you'll need to transfer them somewhere else to store them.

 

[n4uau]

Thanks I was beginning to see that. So I guess to store photos off the camera I need to use a cloud storage like DropBox or be sure to copy them from my PC Photostream folder to a different one.

 

[J. A.]

Dropbox is one of the options you have, but it uploads photos from the Camera Roll only. If you use Google Drive, or Box, you can upload imported photos as well (photos you imported to your device from a camera).

 

[n4uau]

Where are imported photos stored on the iPad. I thought they'd be on the Camera Roll too?

 

[J. A.]

When I import photos from a camera, they can be seen in an extra folder in the Photo app, but not in Camera Roll:

 

[twerppoet]

Photo Stream is not permanent. However, Shared Photo Streams are. You don't have to actually share them. This is how I maintain shared albums across my devices and Mac.

iCloud: Shared Photo Streams FAQ

I also use Flickr. It's more work to save photos twice, but it is also far far safer to have important photos in more than one place.. The app FlickrStackr a bit complicated, but works well.

 

[Blue92]

If you backup using iTunes you can also grab copies from the user folders on your PC.

C:\Users\UserName\Pictures\Photo Stream\My Photo Stream