Updated October 2019
Do you still manually plug in your iPhone to pull the photos or videos onto your computer?
If you have an iPhone, you can sync photos (but not videos) to your PC or Mac using the iCloud sync app.
Claire asked if there was a limit on iCloud storage:
Claire, there is a limit to the online storage with the iCloud. It's confusing iCloud is both the online iCloud.com site and the name Apple gives to the PC/Mac syncing app.
The Your Photostream online only stores the last 1000 images. But if you use the iCloud control panel in Windows it will create a folder and just put all the photos there (Not videos though). On a Mac it will add them to iPhoto (not just the last 1000).
An easy alternative
Do you know that Dropbox can automatically pull the photos off your phone and sync them to your computer?
Get your free Dropbox account using my link and we both get extra space! Here's the magic link!
Google Photos to the Rescue
Since I originally wrote this post, I now love Google Photos to make a copy of my photo photos. Learn all about it in Modern Photo Solutions free course.
iCloud Issues
I personally do not encourage the use of iCloud, because whenever you delete a photo off your phone it automatically deletes from iCloud too. And the 'save space on your phone' option just means that you have only low resulotion photos on the phone. This causes a lot of issues if you are using anything except the Mac Photos App to organize your photos.
Do you still email photos to yourself?
My question is to those manually emailing or downloading photos...
Why do you manually download or email photos?
- Syncing was confusing to set up
- I don't have iCloud on my phone
- I prefer to choose which photos to download
- I didn't know your could do it without plugging the phone in
- Something else
Share your iCloud confusion in the comments and I'll do my best to clear up that confusion!
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I use the Airdrop feature on my iPhone to send photos to my main computer. Fast and easy! You can send a whole “moment” at once and be done with it. So far I’ve only sent 30-40 at once, but there may be no upper limit.
Ooh, that’s a nice idea 🙂
Another alternative is the Photo Transfer App (I found the “auto” of Dropbox only worked if I opened the app, and then I would have to still transfer from Dropbox to my computer) Photo Transfer App (about $2.99?) allows transfers between devices – in some instances faster than AirDrop – and between device and computer, both ways. It is fast and I only have to transfer once! My favorite app, really! It is super slick!
ShelA you should be able install Dropbox on your computer and it will automatically sync. But you are right you have to have the Dropbox app open for it to upload in the first place.
Thanks for sharing the Photo Transfer App I’ll have to check it out!
Yes, I have Dropbox on my computer and it does sync across devices and computers (2 devices, 2 computers at this point). However, for “permanent” storage, I have to move the photos into my photo folders – I need to learn more about the PSE Organizer, thank you in advance for your resources on that! The Photo Transfer app, once installed on your computer, allows placement of photos right into the destination folders from the iPhone, which is my primary camera these days. Works the same way with the iPad, which is where I do some of the design/layout work on pages. Quick drop and my completed pages are in the appropriate folders on my computer!
Dropbox also has a limit on storage for free, and I am on the cheap side… I just have to manage the space more thoughtfully!
Really enjoying your podcasts. Just caught up! Thanks, Melissa!
🙂 good point – I pay for Dropbox myself but I am using PSE to move the files over anyway. I love Organizer so drop me a line if you need a hand with anything.
Oh thank you! I love podcasting and have another episode coming soon!
I’ve never managed to get iCloud to work, more than the 1,000 current pics that are automatically copied from my iPhone to my iPad, and those are a blessing. I learned that the hard way a couple of years ago when my iPhone crashed and I lost precious recent photos because I didn’t set up that autotransfer. 🙁
Whenever I try to sync, there’s always lack of space and they want me to upgrade. Same thing with Dropbox. And I already pay for extra storage at Google and other places, so I’m kind of fed up with every storage solution online constantly wanting more of my money. LOL So I import my photos via Preview on my Macbook. It’s fast and easy. And if worst comes to worst, I have 1,000 photos on my iPad.
You can get all your phone photos automatically uploaded to Flickr, and I also think you can get that service on Facebook (where there’s no limit of space and you don’t have to pay for storage), but I don’t want my photo streams in those places clogged with hundreds of blurry and bad photos that I constantly have to weed out, so I turned off that feature. 😉
I totally feel you on this! I use Flickr, but like you say, I need to weed out my photos 🙂
I purchased a couple of your classes and really enjoy them. I received this article in my email yesterday. I am a bit perplexed and somewhat disappointed that the comments below are 3 and 4 years old…which tells me that this information is not current. I do see that you’ve updated some of the info to mention Google photos. This particular email doesn’t really give me any info on using the iCloud to store my photos! I do have PSE and need to learn how to use that more. Do you have current info and tutorial/lesson in dealing with photos from my iPhone??