iCloud: Set up Photo Stream

When you set up Photo Stream, you can turn on My Photo Stream and Shared Photo Streams independently. Your new photos appear automatically on all your iOS devices and computers set up with My Photo Stream, no matter which one you use to take or import new photos.

With Shared Photo Streams turned on, you can create shared photo streams and subscribe to shared photo streams created by others. You can view photo streams shared by others publicly on the web whether Shared Photo Streams is on or off. For Shared Photo Streams system requirements, see What is Photo Stream?.

On an iOS device

In Settings, tap iCloud, tap Photo Stream, then turn on My Photo Stream, Shared Photo Streams, or both.

Photo Stream item

 

With My Photo Stream turned on, new photos taken with your iOS device appear in your photo stream when your device is connected to the Internet via Wi-Fi. The new photos appear automatically in My Photo Stream on your other devices set up with My Photo Stream, including your Mac and Windows computers.

On a Mac to work with iPhoto or Aperture

For instructions, see one of these iPhoto Help or Aperture Help topics:

Turn on My Photo Stream in iPhoto

Turn on Shared Photo Streams in iPhoto

Turning On My Photo Stream for an Aperture Library

Turning On Shared Photo Streams in Aperture

On a Windows computer

Your computer must have iCloud Control Panel 2.1 or later installed. You can download it at http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1455.

  1. Open the iCloud Control Panel, then turn on Photo Stream.

    Photo Stream checkbox

    To open the iCloud Control Panel in Windows 8, move the pointer to the upper-right corner of the screen to show the Charms bar, click the Search charm, then click iCloud Control Panel on the left.

    To open the iCloud Control Panel in Windows 7 or Windows Vista, choose Start menu > All Programs > Folder icon iCloud > iCloud Control Panel icon iCloud.

  2. To change the default Photo Stream upload and download folders, click Options. Click Change to choose a folder, then click OK.

    By default, photos are automatically downloaded to the My Photo Stream folder inside the Photo Stream album in your Pictures library, and uploaded from the Uploads folder inside the Photo Stream album in your Pictures library.

  3. Click Apply.

When you import photos from a digital camera to the upload folder specified in the iCloud Control Panel, the photos appear automatically in My Photo Stream on your iOS devices and your computers set up with My Photo Stream.

You can also add photos to Photo Stream manually.