Apple’s My Photo Stream shuts down in a few days – how to save your snaps

Apple is sending out emails to users letting them know that the company’s My Photo Stream will shut down on July 26. The company is replacing the service with iCloud Photos, which provides a full-featured cloud-based photo syncing service.

My Photo Stream was a free service that allowed iPhone and iPad owners to view images taken on one device on other devices. The images were streamed to other iPhones, iPads or Macs, and didn’t use any of the user’s iCloud storage space. The photos were available for 30 days, and then they were automatically deleted from the My Photo Stream. Apple has replaced the service with iCloud Photos, which is a better solution for people who want to share images across all their Apple devices.

The new iCloud Photos will sync all the files that have been captured by the camera on any device, and the backed-up files can be accessed from any iOS or OS X device. Users can also download the original versions of all their images from iCloud Photos to any of their devices. Apple is offering 5GB of free iCloud storage with the service, but most will need to pay for at least the 50GB iCloud tier to get enough room to store all their photos and videos.

There are several ways to save any of the photos stored in a person’s My Photo Stream, which will be removed from iCloud Photos. The first step is to ensure that the iCloud Photos service is turned on on all of the devices where the pictures are stored. Next, users need to ensure that the My Photo Stream album on each device is set to keep the latest version of any uploaded files. This can be done by touching the image or video and selecting ‘Save Image’ (iPhone/iPad) or Command-clicking the image or video in the My Photo Stream album on a Mac, and then dragging it to the Library album in iCloud Photos.

If users aren’t sure whether or not they need to download the original versions of any iCloud Photos images, they can go to the Apple website and check their iCloud storage details. If they have a lot of images that they need to save, they can opt for the 99 cents a month iCloud+ offering or the $2.99 iCloud storage option for 200GB.

Once users have iCloud Photos set up on all their Apple devices, they can start sharing images and videos by using the Files app, AirDrop or email. They can also save any of the photos or videos in the My Photo Stream album on each device, and then move them to the Library on iCloud Photos to keep them in the long run. If a person wants to access any of these photos on their computer, they can just drag the files from the My Photo Stream folder in the iCloud Photos app into the Library folder on their Windows PC.