iCloud.com Photos App Gains New Uploading Capabilities

Following two weeks of testing on the iCloud beta site for developers, the consumer-facing iCloud.com site has gained support for uploading images to iCloud Photo Library (via iFun.de [Google Translate]).

Before the addition of the new uploading tool, the standard iCloud.com site allowed users to view all of their iCloud Photo Library images, as well as download and delete them, but it did not have a tool to allow users to upload photos captured with non-Apple devices.

icloudbetasiteuploadtool

New toolbar with upload support on iCloud.com site at top, previous iCloud.com toolbar on bottom

The new uploading feature on the iCloud.com site makes it possible to upload JPGs, but as with the beta feature, other image and video formats like .PNG, .MOV, .AVI, .MP4, and more are not supported. When a file is uploaded to the site, it syncs instantly to all of a user's iOS devices, much like a photo taken on an iPhone or iPad or added to iCloud Photo Library via the iOS Photos app.

Currently in beta and introduced alongside iOS 8.1, iCloud Photo Library stores all of the photos and videos that a user takes in iCloud, making them available on all iOS devices and Macs. iCloud Photo Library images can be viewed in the Photos app on iOS or through iCloud.com on the Mac, and the upcoming Photos app that Apple is creating for Macs will also work with iCloud Photo Library.

Users should be aware that photos uploaded to iCloud Photo Library use iCloud storage space. Apple offers 5GB of storage space for free, with additional plans ranging from $0.99 for 20GB of storage space to $19.99 for 1TB of storage space.

Popular Stories

iOS 26 on iPhone Feature

Here's When iOS 26 Rolls Out Today in Every Time Zone [Update: Out Now!]

Monday September 15, 2025 12:00 am PDT by
Update 10:06 a.m.: iOS 26 is rolling out now, though it may take a bit for all users to see it, so keep checking! Today's the day! Apple is about to release iOS 26, which will deliver the biggest redesign since iOS 7 and bring a range of new features and improvements to iPhones worldwide. It's Apple's biggest software update of the year, and Apple announced at last week's iPhone event that...
Tim Cook Rainbow

Apple Reportedly Plans to Launch These 10 Products in 'Coming Months'

Sunday September 14, 2025 8:45 am PDT by
Apple's annual September event is now in the rearview mirror, with the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max, iPhone Air, Apple Watch Series 11, Apple Watch Ultra 3, Apple Watch SE 3, and AirPods Pro 3 set to launch this Friday, September 19. As always, there is more to come. In his Power On newsletter today, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said Apple plans to release many products in the...
apple n1 chip

Apple's New N1 Chip in iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone Air Has a Wi-Fi 7 Limitation

Saturday September 13, 2025 10:01 am PDT by
The latest iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max, and iPhone Air models are equipped with Apple's all-new N1 chip for Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and Thread connectivity. However, the chip has a Wi-Fi 7 bandwidth limitation. According to FCC documents reviewed by MacRumors, the N1 chip in all of the new iPhone models supports up to 160 MHz channel bandwidth for Wi-Fi 7, short of the...
iPhone 17 Pro Colors

Didn't Pre-Order a New iPhone Yet? Here's How Long the Wait is Now

Friday September 12, 2025 6:11 am PDT by
iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max, and iPhone Air pre-orders began at 5 a.m. Pacific Time in the U.S. and many other countries today. If you have yet to place a pre-order, you might face a longer wait now, depending on your desired configuration. As of shortly after 6 a.m. Pacific Time today, nearly all iPhone 17 Pro Max configurations on Apple's online store in the U.S. are facing ...
airpods translate

AirPods Live Translation Blocked for EU Users With EU Apple Accounts

Thursday September 11, 2025 4:01 am PDT by
Apple's new Live Translation feature for AirPods will be off-limits to millions of European users when it arrives next week, with strict EU regulations likely holding back its rollout. Apple says on its feature availability webpage that "Apple Intelligence: Live Translation with AirPods" won't be available if both the user is physically in the EU and their Apple Account region is in the EU....
iphone 17 lineup

iPhone 17 Models Launch on September 19 With These New Features

Friday September 12, 2025 7:58 am PDT by
Apple will launch its new iPhone 17 lineup and ultra-thin iPhone Air in stores on Friday, September 19, and the company has already shown off the new devices at its fall event, which ran with the the tagline "Awe dropping." The iPhone 17 series brings a host of new features and enhancements. Here's a rundown of the biggest upgrades and changes: iPhone 17 Display Changes The iPhone...
iphone air all colors

iPhone Air and iPhone 17 Pro Now Facing Extended Delivery Estimates

Saturday September 13, 2025 11:43 am PDT by
iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max, and iPhone Air pre-orders began on Friday in the U.S. and many other countries. iPhone 17 Pro Max delivery estimates quickly slipped beyond the Friday, September 19 launch day for those who had yet to place an order, and now the rest of the new models have started to follow suit. As of shortly after 11:30 a.m. Pacific Time today, select iPhone 17, ...
iOS 26 Battery Glass Feature

Apple Says Installing iOS 26 Might Impact Battery Life

Monday September 15, 2025 10:56 am PDT by
In the iOS 26 release notes, Apple is warning iPhone users that installing the new software might have a temporary impact on battery life, which is normal. A new support document explains that major iOS updates require background setup like indexing data and files for search, downloading new assets, and updating apps. Further, Apple says that new features could require more resources,...
iPhone 17 Pro Colors

iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Pro Models Are eSIM-Only in These Countries

Tuesday September 9, 2025 12:23 pm PDT by
Apple continues to phase out the physical SIM card tray on iPhones, with the latest models relying solely on eSIM technology in more countries. The new iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Pro Max support eSIMs only in these countries and regions, according to Apple: Bahrain Canada Guam Japan Kuwait Mexico Oman Qatar Saudi Arabia United Arab Emirates Un...

Top Rated Comments

iphone495 Avatar
141 months ago
Still waiting for the new Photos app.

----------

Jennifer Lawrence can't say the same.

Sorry, I had to say it.

Any update to iCloud is a good one. In the last few weeks I've looked into using it more due to its security.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
proline Avatar
141 months ago
Where is the Photos app for OSX??? :eek:
In 2015, right where you were told it was.

----------

WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY must you force syncing photos to all devices?!?!?
I don't want all my devices to have all the exact same content on them.

The whole point of storing my photos in iCloud Photo should be to NOT HAVE TO STORE them on my mobile devices and free up space.

I want to store photos in iCloud and then be able to access them from my phone or tablet through a browser or app when I want, and then choose whether or not I would like to upload chosen photos to be stored on the device that I want.

iCloud Drive is a joke as well, and from the beginning was incredibly misleading as to how it functions, especially with the photos of the iCloud main folder screen shown on the iPhone.
I asked an apple employee how to access that screen on my iPhone and none of them could figure out how...... because, you can't.

It is not at all a true "cloud storage drive" à la drop box, google drive, etc with direct folder/file access and customization to stored content.
Only specific apps can access / use it.

Why not create a native "iCloud app" to access / manage etc.. iCloud content?

Apple's got this all wrong IMO.
You are incredibly ignorant, please stop talking about this. iCloud photos requires zero local storage to display your entire library, and uses local storage to cache photos only when free local storage is available. Turn on the 'optimize local storage' and grow up. Nobody needs to delete photos from iCloud to free up device space.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
luchid Avatar
141 months ago
So the choice is degradated copies of everything or original copies of everything? :eek:



That's just not going to work for a lot of people.
As soon as you view an image it is downloaded in full quality. So you're wrong.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
metfuel Avatar
141 months ago

The whole point of storing my photos in iCloud Photo should be to NOT HAVE TO STORE them on my mobile devices and free up space.

That is what I thought as well, but I have heard more than one person talk about freeing up the storage on your devices using iCloud Photos and they seem to think that your devices will have lower res thumbnails (even though iCloud will have the full resolution picture) and when when you access the thumbnails it will load the full resolution picture. Not sure if that is what they plan on doing but it would make sense.


I have some deeper concerns about switching over to iCloud Photos.

I do not want ALL of my pictures automatically uploaded. I just don't. There are times I save pictures from safari for one off uses, screenshots that I take.

I have all of my family's pictures in an iPhoto library right now and every so often I offload the pictures that are family related only onto my mac and use an automator workflow to tag the file names with the date created and who is in the picture. Then I import them to iPhoto where they live. This is the library that I would want to access anytime and anywhere. If I am automatically uploading pictures straight to iCloud I am junking up my family photo album with all kinds of stuff, and we have no idea how the metadata is handled.

I wish that they would make a separate "camera roll" for screenshots, and the same goes for saved safari (or insert app name here) pictures that would not be automatically included in this.

This is a huge change and they should at least start detailing how the conversion from iPhoto/Aperture is going to happen to Photos for people who have years invested in organizing their photos in Apples ecosystem. It is absolutely insane to me that they aren't coming out with these at the same time (for iOS and the Mac), yes I am the guy you previous posts were talking about. The release of iOS 8 and iCloud Drive separate from Yosemite screwed enough people over and I am sure there are people who don't know what they are doing will turn this on iOS 8 first and then when they turn it on their computer they will have all kinds of duplicates from having imported the pictures from their camera roll and never deleting it off of their phone.

I have used iPhoto since it was introduced and have multiple libraries. I understand that iPhoto will be able to be used for awhile but eventually everything will have to be migrated out of iPhoto to be used either in Photos or an Alternative like Lightroom. I would like to continue to use Apple's software, but I will have to wait on this to see how much of a disaster or how well it goes.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
topherdesign Avatar
141 months ago
no sense at all

WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY must you force syncing photos to all devices?!?!?
I don't want all my devices to have all the exact same content on them.

The whole point of storing my photos in iCloud Photo should be to NOT HAVE TO STORE them on my mobile devices and free up space.

I want to store photos in iCloud and then be able to access them from my phone or tablet through a browser or app when I want, and then choose whether or not I would like to upload chosen photos to be stored on the device that I want.

iCloud Drive is a joke as well, and from the beginning was incredibly misleading as to how it functions, especially with the photos of the iCloud main folder screen shown on the iPhone.
I asked an apple employee how to access that screen on my iPhone and none of them could figure out how...... because, you can't.

It is not at all a true "cloud storage drive" à la drop box, google drive, etc with direct folder/file access and customization to stored content.
Only specific apps can access / use it.

Why not create a native "iCloud app" to access / manage etc.. iCloud content?

Apple's got this all wrong IMO.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
MacVault Avatar
141 months ago
Asside from its feature-vacuum, here's (https://www.icloud.com/#photos) what I hate about iCloud...

To use Photos, go to iCloud Settings on your iOS device, tap on Photos, and turn on iCloud Photo Library.

I love Macs and iOS devices but I refuse to be locked to a certain device or platform. I refuse to use services which don't utilize all the AMAZING web app goodness available.

Why, with Apple's resources, is iCloud such a joke?
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)