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splifingate

macrumors 65816
Nov 27, 2013
1,296
1,074
ATL
'iCloud' is (basically) a mirror.

At Face Value, it serves to enable a User to maintain reflective copies of what they have on one device, to another.

Deletion, etc., should present you (as the User) warnings stating such if you choose to Delete something. Are you not receiving that?

If one has a desktop Mac OS (and holds sufficient iCloud Space), it's possible to store data in the part of your iCloud Space that is not serving synch-services.
 

joeblack007

macrumors member
Nov 23, 2023
65
40
So if you are storing stuff in your cloud, and you delete it off your phone, why is it removed from the cloud?

It’s one of the most annoying things that an Apple Advisor deals with. Honestly, most of them (primarily Tier 1) don’t even understand that this happens. Customer attempts to free up space on device (even using optimize storage) and then realizes they’ve unintentionally deleted all their photos.

People will say “but you have 30 days to restore them”. First of all, you need to understand that it’s even an option and second of all, lots of people purge the deleted items location and after waiting several days, they call Apple. In that case, those photos most likely will not be recoverable by a Senior Advisor…I don’t care if your attorney is calling.

iCloud Photo Library syncs with your device so whenever you delete a photo in your camera roll, it removes that photo in iCloud (sending it to the deleted items folder). You’ve got about 30 days to retrieve those photos from that album and after that, they are gone for good. For people trying to manage space on their device, this can be shocking. They just assumed the photos were still in iCloud. I can’t begin to tell you how many times I heard the cries (literally) of customers who unknowingly deleted all their kids photos, wedding pictures, baby being born, baptisms, etc.

iCloud Photo Library is (in my opinion) a terrible way to store your photos. Sure, you can keep buying more storage but that’s not going to help anyone who is out of space on their device (which is going to happen sooner or later). It’s much better to offload your pictures to a portable drive in order to keep space free on your device and protect your precious photos.

If you must store your photos online, Google Photos is a much better option than iCloud. You get 15gb of free space and you can upgrade to 100gb for $1.99. The big advantage though, is the fact that you can delete photos in your camera roll to free up space and those photos will still exist in Google Photos! That’s a huge difference and a life-saver.

My rant is over but the point is….well, you get the point.
 
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Clix Pix

macrumors Core
iCloud is not meant to be, nor was it ever intended to be, an archival storage place; as mentioned already in this thread, it's much more of a synchronizing program, and, yes, eventually deletes files after a certain time period or when the user deletes the file from their iPhone, iPad or computer.

You want to save images, documents and other files you feel are important? Seriously, don't depend on iCloud for that. Buy one or two external drives (either HDD or SSD) and put those files on them. They will then be protected and safe -- truly under your control locally without concerns about whatever iCloud decides to do with your files.
 
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joeblack007

macrumors member
Nov 23, 2023
65
40
iCloud is not meant to be, nor was it ever intended to be, an archival storage place.

You want to save images, documents and other files you feel are important? Seriously, don't depend on iCloud for that. Buy one or two external drives (either HDD or SSD) and put those files on them. They will then be protected and safe locally and under your control without concerns about whatever iCloud decides to do with your files.
This! 100%
 
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ssledoux

macrumors 601
Original poster
Sep 16, 2006
4,302
4,171
Down south
Thank you all for the, rather strong, opinions. I understand what delete means - just haven’t really ever used iCloud much so I wanted to understand how this works.

Not planning to call Apple, get a lawyer, or any other of the aforementioned actions.
 

Sully

macrumors 6502
Oct 27, 2007
263
228
Continuing this thread, for 2024, what’s the best solution for archiving photos? SSD? HHD?

I’m currently using CC Cloner and an SSD, but I would like to archive all family photos off line and separate from my back up solution.
 
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