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Transferring images from Photostream to Mac's Permanent Store

Avatar David Moon
Hi, I have been thrown by discovering that if I delete a photo in Photostream it is deleted from my Mac completely. I thought you could set that Mac automatically to copy images from Photostream to its own library. Looks as if Apple trying to force me to use iCloud Photo Library. I am missing something?

Putting it another way, I thought that side bar Photos as opposed to All Photos is permanent storage on Mac.

Re: Transferring images from Photostream to Mac's Permanent Store

Avatar Mick Burrell
I think but haven't checked recently that the device that took the photo (including the Mac if it's been loaded to the Photos library from a camera) would always have the original.

Re: Transferring images from Photostream to Mac's Permanent Store

Avatar David Moon
Yes, agreed, the original does stay on the device that took it. I thought that you could set Photos on the Mac to automatically "copy" photos to its library from Photostream. I'm pretty sure you could do that in iPhoto.

Re: Transferring images from Photostream to Mac's Permanent Store

Avatar Mick Burrell
iPhoto has a preference called Automatic Import which says "Include My Photo Stream photos in Events, Photos, Faces and Places". I would have expected the title to mean that yes, you're correct, it would automatically import to the library but the explanation is ambiguous, at least to me. If instead of include it said import or show, I think it would be more certain which of those two it meant.

The nearest preference I can find in Photos is headed My Photo Stream which offers to import from devices without iCloud Photo Library which may be the same as in iPhoto.

Of course with the discontinuing of professional apps for photos, music etc. and "streamlining" iPhoto to Photos, it may be that an iMac is heading to be just an expensive, mains powered iPad.

Re: Transferring images from Photostream to Mac's Permanent Store

Avatar Roy Rainford
Is this thread dealing with Sierra? If so then I will delay upgrading.
What professional apps are you referring to Mick? I don't see Lightroom being fully effective on an iPad dealing with 50Mb image sizes. I assume you are joking! (again).

Re: Transferring images from Photostream to Mac's Permanent Store

Avatar David Moon
No Roy, I'm running El Capitan and Photos 1.5, my 2009 MacBook Pro can't run Sierra - roll on the end of October and rumoured release of new MacBook Pro!

If I take a photo on my iPhone it shows in Photostream on my iPad, but on the iPad I can select an image in Photostream, select "Share" and then "Save Image" and that moves it onto the iPad Camera Roll. I don't see how to do the same thing on my Mac.

The Mac does not have a Camera Roll but I presumed the first folder "Photos" is the equivalent and then "All Photos" under Albums includes Photostream. So it is confusing that images appear in "Photos" but are temporary as actually in Photostream.

Re: Transferring images from Photostream to Mac's Permanent Store

Avatar Tony Still
I think the behaviour that David is seeing is how Photostream is supposed to work. It is confused by the fact that it has had changes to its intended operation, and serious bugs, over the years (remember how the whole lot was broken in in iOS 8.0?). In my opinion, it should be treated as a temporary convenience, not a "proper" picture transfer (see below also).

It is further confused in that Photo Stream works differently on the Mac from iOS (I think). Apple has a support page here, my best reading of it is that the Photo Stream you see on your Mac (in Photos) has unlimited size and no expiry time (unlike iOS) but does act like an album in that a deletion is a deletion - it'll be gone. It's curious that Photos lets you Copy photos here but not Paste them anywhere else (within the Photos app, that is) and that it does not let you move them.

However, I believe Mick's comment about the original remaining on the device that created it is true. It is worth explicitly copying that master photo if you want to keep it long-term because the copy on Photo Stream may be lower quality (there are various limitations on the Photo Stream copy).

Re: Transferring images from Photostream to Mac's Permanent Store

Avatar David Moon
Here is a quote from Apple Help "To conserve storage space, My Photo Stream stores your last 30 days of photos and lets you collect up to 1,000 on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. Your Mac and Windows computers can automatically download and permanently keep every picture from My Photo Stream."

Here is the. Link

But I can't work out how!

Re: Transferring images from Photostream to Mac's Permanent Store

Avatar Tony Still
I read that quote too. I found it ambiguous when you actively delete a photo from Photo Stream using another device: yes the Mac will keep as many as you like (with no time limit) but does that mean it will ignore a remote delete request?

I tried briefly to test this today but my Mac/Photos failed to download the test pictures from Photo Stream at all so I couldn't test what happened when I deleted them. I'm afraid I wouldn't trust it for anything critical at the moment.

Re: Transferring images from Photostream to Mac's Permanent Store

Avatar Trevor Hewson
Yes, I too find that the Mac can be reluctant to download the latest pics from Photostream. Restarting the Mac seems to kick it into action but is rather a sledgehammer technique. You would have thought that relaunching Photos would be enough.

I do get the feeling that, in the photo management area at least, Apple never quite get the system working properly before someone comes up with a whole new approach and, as David has said, we don't all want to go over to iCloud Photo Library.

Re: Transferring images from Photostream to Mac's Permanent Store

Avatar Tony Still
Thanks Trevor, sometimes it's nice to know that it's not just me having these issues. It's quite disappointing really: I thought Photo Stream was one of their better ideas and it's one of those neat 'it just works' systems ... except now when it doesn't.

However, this morning following a reboot, my two pictures have appeared on the Mac. I deleted one from Photo Stream on the iPad and it promptly disappeared on the Mac. This matches David's results but I'm still not sure it contradicts Apple's documentation: it was there permanently on the Mac but I did then ask, albeit remotely, to delete it.

I then deleted both master photos on the iPad (i.e. deleted from Camera Roll) and, to my great surprise, the one left on Photo Stream disappeared too (on both pad and Mac). That is surely wrong? Perhaps it's all work in progress.

If someone has the patience to wait for 1000 pictures to be added to Photo Stream, the picture should become unavailable on iOS devices. I wonder what happens then - any volunteers to test it?

Re: Transferring images from Photostream to Mac's Permanent Store

Avatar Mick Burrell
OK, I don't use Photostream but stay with me.

In response to Tony's observation following deleting the master on the iPad, I would expect that to delete it from Photostream and hence from all other devices. Bearing in mind that Photos does non-destructive editing, i.e. just keeps a log of your editing and applies that to the master, I suspect that the iPad (or any device) just attaches a flag to the master saying "show this in Photostream" so when the master is deleted, there's nothing to show in Photostream on the iPad and hence it's deleted from the cloud and then from all devices.

There's clearly no button in Mac Photos saying "add this to the library" or you'd have discovered it by now. Is it possible, as a workaround, to drag a Photostream photo to the Mac desktop and then choose import to library to get it there permanently? Not ideal I know, but if it works, perhaps worthwhile until a better solution is found? Or perhaps import to library is available from the Photostream display?

Re: Transferring images from Photostream to Mac's Permanent Store

Avatar Douglas Cheney
There is an article on http://www.macworld.com from Mac 911 which is talking about Photo Stream which may be of interest and help to the problems which you are having

Re: Transferring images from Photostream to Mac's Permanent Store

Avatar David Moon
Doug, is there a specific link for that article, please?

Mick, yes exporting a photo to desktop or wherever and then importing into Photos works according to Euan.

Picking up on Trevor and Tony's problem of the Mac pulling in photos from photo stream. When my mid 2009 MacBook Pro fails, I have to go to Quit Photos, Open Activity Monitor, Search Photos, Delete Photos Agent and then reopen Photos. I got that tip off the web somewhere and it seems to work!

I really don't think "Your Mac and Windows computers can automatically download and permanently keep every picture from My Photo Stream." should be ambiguous, but clearly seems to be. I will try Apple Support/Discussion and see what I get.

Re: Transferring images from Photostream to Mac's Permanent Store

Avatar Douglas Cheney
This is the page and the copy of the web link is this http://www.macworld.com/article/3128820/photography/how-to-retain-images-in-photos-when-turning-off-icloud-photo-library.html

Re: Transferring images from Photostream to Mac's Permanent Store

Avatar David Moon
Thank you Douglas. That does make it clear that when using iCloud Photo Library photos are stored permanently on the Mac with the option as to whether they are full resolution or not. What stumps me is that even if not using iCloud Photo Library I would expect Photostream to offer the same facility, which the quote from Apple says it does, but not for me!

Re: Transferring images from Photostream to Mac's Permanent Store

Avatar Tony Still
Yes, Doug's link is about iCloud Photo Library rather than Photo Stream. We could try to understand that next ;-)

My comment about ambiguity really meant that you might interpret:
"Your Mac and Windows computers can automatically download and permanently keep every picture from My Photo Stream."
as encompassing:
"Your Mac and Windows computers can automatically download and permanently* keep every picture from My Photo Stream (*assuming that you don't subsequently delete them)."

Since you'd expect a delete mechanism, this seems entirely reasonable. However, you might also read it as providing a separate store, in which case deleting from Photo Stream wouldn't constitute a delete request for the "permanent" copy.

So the ambiguity revolves around the presumed delete function. I'm sorry to be so pedantic but this kind of issue is the root of many a conflict between IT procurement teams and their developers.

Re: Transferring images from Photostream to Mac's Permanent Store

Avatar David Moon
I am now sitting at my sisters iMac running Yosemite and Photos 1.0.1 and it works perfectly i.e I take a photo on her iPad, it shortly appears in both Photostream and Photos on her Mac. I then delete the photo from Photostream but it remains in Photos. Can anyone get the same to happen with either El Capitan or Sierra?

Re: Transferring images from Photostream to Mac's Permanent Store

Avatar Tony Still
David - That's what most of us expected it to do then. It's also the most intuitive reading of the "permanently" quote.

I suggest that they've broken it again and a bug report is required (from here).

Re: Transferring images from Photostream to Mac's Permanent Store

Avatar David Moon
Thanks Tony for suggestion and link. I am now feeling a bit red faced because I thought I would re-run my test first and blow me it worked correctly here on my Computer. I will repeat the test daily for a few days.
 
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