Apple announced last month that it plans to discontinue its My Photo Stream service this summer. Today marks the deadline for media uploads using the free iCloud feature. This effectively ends the service after more than a decade of providing a basic sync solution at no cost to Apple device users.
Introduced by Steve Jobs as part of iCloud in 2011, My Photo Stream automatically uploaded photos and videos on one device for downloading to another device without manually syncing. The feature didn’t count against the free 5GB iCloud storage limit – which, adjusted for inflation, is about 5MB – but it was limited to 1000 files and never supported full resolution sync.
Apple later launched iCloud Photo Library (now iCloud Photos) as a fully featured photo and video sync service. iCloud Photos requires a paid iCloud subscription to go beyond the free 5GB iCloud storage limit. Storage tiers range from 50GB to 2TB with plans from $0.99 per month.
As per My Photo Stream, the 30-day sync service will go completely offline on July 26. Between now and then, photos and videos stored using the service will continue to fall off as they reach their one-month storage limit.
Apple points people to iCloud Photos and includes directions for how to save photos from My Photo Stream:
On your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch
- Open Photos and tap Albums.
- Tap My Photo Stream > Select.
- Tap the photos you want to save, then tap the Share button
> Save Image.
On your Mac
- Open the Photos app, then open the My Photo Stream album.
- Select any photos you want to save that aren’t currently in your photo library.
- Drag them from the My Photo Stream album to your Library.
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