My Photo Stream shut down on July, 26, 2023. The content in this article is available as a reference.
What is My Photo Stream?
My Photo Stream is an iCloud service that originally launched in 2011. It temporarily uploads the photos you take on one device so you can view them on any other device with My Photo Stream enabled, and import them to your library on that device if you like. Photos remain in My Photo Stream for 30 days — up to 1,000 photos at any given time — and are then automatically deleted from iCloud.
My Photo Stream is scheduled to be shut down on July 26, 2023. As part of this transition, new photo uploads to My Photo Stream from your devices will stop one month before, on June 26, 2023. Any photos uploaded to the service before that date will remain in iCloud for 30 days from the date of upload and will be available to any of your devices where My Photo Stream is currently enabled. By July 26, 2023, there will be no photos remaining in My Photo Stream, and the service will be shut down.
My Photo Stream is a separate service from iCloud Photos. Moving forward, iCloud Photos is the best way to keep the photos and videos you take up to date across all your devices and safely stored in iCloud. If you already have iCloud Photos enabled on all of your devices, you don't need to do anything else — your photos are already uploaded and stored in iCloud.
Why did you receive this email?
If you’re not familiar with My Photo Stream, you might have used this service in the past, or it may have been automatically enabled for your account at one time. If you currently use iCloud Photos, you might not see My Photo Stream in your device settings. To check, use the steps below.
What do you need to do?
Check whether you use iCloud Photos on all of your devices. If you don't use iCloud Photos, you can save photos currently in My Photo Stream to your device. To keep your photos synced across your devices, you can turn on iCloud Photos.
Check whether you use iCloud Photos
- On your iPhone or iPad, go to Settings > your name > iCloud. Make sure that it says "On" next to Photos on each of your devices.
- On your Mac, choose Apple menu > System Settings, click your name, then click iCloud. Make sure that it says "On" next to Photos on each of your devices.
If you don't use iCloud Photos
The photos in My Photo Stream are already stored on at least one of your devices, so as long as you have the device with your originals, you won’t lose any photos as part of this process. If a photo you want isn't already in your library on a particular iPhone or iPad, make sure that you save it to your library on that device. Or, you can set up iCloud Photos.
Save photos currently in My Photo Stream on your iPhone or iPad
- Open Photos and tap Albums.
- Tap My Photo Stream > Select.
- Tap the photos that you want to save, then tap the Share button
> Save Image.
On a Mac, your My Photo Stream photos automatically import to your library.
Set up iCloud Photos
You can turn on iCloud Photos on any iPhone with iOS 8.3 or later, iPad with iPadOS 8.3 or later, or Mac with OS X Yosemite or later. After that, you can view your photos and videos in the Photos app on your iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, iCloud.com, and even sync them to a Windows PC using iCloud for Windows.
Learn how to set up iCloud Photos on all of your devices