Apple’s early foray into cloud photo sharing — My Photo Stream — will be shut down later this year, the company has confirmed.
In fact, the shutdown has already started. A support page on the Apple site announcing the feature explains that the service stopped uploading photos on June 26.
Because existing photos are deleted 30 days after being uploaded, the final shutdown date is actually still to come, however.
“By July 26, 2023, there will be no photos remaining in iCloud, and the service will be shut down,” Apple said.
What is My Photo Stream?
First revealed by Steve Jobs in 2011, My Photo Stream was an early foray into the world of cloud storage.
The system would upload the last 1,000 photos to an unmetered part of iCloud, where they would subsequently appear on connected iPhones, iPads, iPod touches, and Macs for easy viewing.
From there, they could be downloaded if users wanted a permanent copy on another device, as they would be in the stream for only 30 days after being taken.
The July closure should give users enough time to ensure that no pictures will be lost when the lights switch off for the last time, but the chances are high that you won’t be impacted at all.
Not only was My Photo Stream superseded by the iCloud Photo Library eight years ago but also, as Apple pointed out, the way My Photo Stream works means that you should still have access to the original photos anyway.
“The photos in My Photo Stream are already stored on at least one of your devices so, as long as you have the device with your originals, you won’t lose any photos as part of this process,” Apple said.
“If a photo you want isn’t already in your library on a particular iPhone, iPad, or Mac, make sure that you save it to your library on that device.”
Where is My Photo Stream on my iPhone?
My Photo Stream is located in the albums section of Photos on your iPhone.
To back up on iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, users need to open Photos, then tap ‘Albums’, followed by ‘My Photo Stream’. They then simply need to tap the photos they want to save, and tap the ‘Share’ button followed by ‘Save Image’.
It’s similar on Macs. Open the Photos app, then click ‘My Photo Stream’. Select any photos you want to keep, and drag them from the window to your library.
