Clean out photos from Phone

Stinicker

My 5GB of free iCloud memory has all been used and I keep getting messages telling me of this.

I have an iPhone and an iPad on my Apple ID account. I want to just purge all the photos off both these devices and back them up in my computer and to basically start afresh. I have been an iPhone user with almost 5 years so I have alot of stuff built up. I will be going travelling to Asia shortly and want to have a fresh phone with lots of free space. It is 64GB anyway but I want the photos syncing to the cloud just incase anything would happen to the phone.

Any ideas for how to transfer and delete the photos in bulk instead of having to go through thousands of pics manually.

Sad Professor

What you are proposing is a very bad idea. Deleting photos off a device (which has loads of storage) so you can continue syncing to the miserable 5GB of free iCloud storage, which will run out again after a couple of weeks of frequent photo-taking in Asia.

If you want to keep using iCloud for photos, then for the sake of a euro a month, I'd recommend purchasing the extra iCloud storage. If you don't want to pay, then I'd say forget about iCloud for photos and start using Dropbox, Google, Microsoft, Flickr, etc who offer more free storage than Apple. But you'll have to sync photos manually.

FourFourRED

If he uses google photos app for iOS he would get free unlimited storage for good quality images and it will upload them automatically with camera roll access.

Stinicker

Theres too many photos on the phone and I just want to tidy them up and put them in folders on the computer. I'm not going to pay the extra €1 per month for iCloud when the 5GB of backup is fine, I don't mind having the photos on the phone if I have them backed up and get them out of iCloud.

baby and crumble

Best thing to do, op is to connect your iPhone and iPad to the laptop, and use Picassa to import them. That will save them in a bulk folder to go through at your own leisure. I do that every few months (although I don't use iCloud
Photo backup) and it's grand. I would recommend getting some kind of cloud storage (free Dropbox or similar) if you're going travelling without a laptop.

guil

Stinicker wrote: »

Theres too many photos on the phone and I just want to tidy them up and put them in folders on the computer. I'm not going to pay the extra €1 per month for iCloud when the 5GB of backup is fine, I don't mind having the photos on the phone if I have them backed up and get them out of iCloud.

You can't have the photos on the phone and not in iCloud unless you turn off photos in iCloud. It's a backup, not additional space.

Simon201

iCloud photo sharing?
Doesn't count against your 5gb storage. Just make various different subjects like your holidays or family etc and share with yourself and then delete the photos off the phone.
(Although best to do a full sync with iTunes as well)

dodzy

99cent per month....... and your problem goes away.

smash

Sad Professor wrote: »

If you don't want to pay, then I'd say forget about iCloud for photos and start using Dropbox, Google, Microsoft, Flickr, etc who offer more free storage than Apple. But you'll have to sync photos manually.

You wont have to manually sync. I know with dropbox you can set it to run a background sync.

Sad Professor

smash wrote: »

You wont have to manually sync. I know with dropbox you can set it to run a background sync.

It's not proper background syncing, though. It uses the location API hack to keep the app running in the b.g. – which your battery won't thank you for. And even then it only works when you change location.

If you are going to use Dropbox or another third party alternative for photo syncing it's better to just open the app from time to time then to rely on whatever battery draining hacks they are using for background syncing.

MillField

dodzy wrote: »

99cent per month....... and your problem goes away.

Have to agree. For €11.88 per year (which is what...a dinner?) you can get a huge amount of iCloud storage which will solve your problem.