Apple's 'My Photo Stream' Service Shutting Down in July 2023

Apple's "My Photo Stream" service is set to shut down on July 26, 2023, which means customers who are still using that feature will need to transition to using iCloud Photos prior to that date.

icloud photos
My Photo Stream is a free service that uploads the last 30 days of images (up to 1,000) to iCloud, making them accessible on the iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, and PC. It predates ‌iCloud Photos‌ and has largely been replaced by the ‌iCloud Photos‌ service at this point.

Going forward, Apple plans to have all customers use ‌iCloud Photos‌ instead of My Photo Stream. New photo uploads to My Photo Stream will stop on June 26, 2023, and images will remain in ‌iCloud‌ as usual for 30 days until the shutdown point.

Because all of the images in My Photo Stream are stored in their original format on at least one Apple device, there isn't a danger of photos being lost as part of the shutdown process. Apple recommends that users who want to have their images on a particular device save them to the Photo Library on that device prior to July 26.

macos mojave photos my photo stream
Images in My Photo Stream can be saved to the Photos app on the ‌iPhone‌ by opening up ‌Photos‌, going to the My Photo Stream album, selecting individual photos, and using the Share button to save them to the Library. The process is the same on the Mac, but you will need to drag images from My Photo Stream to the Library.

Apple suggests that ‌iPhone‌, ‌iPad‌, and Mac users turn on ‌iCloud Photos‌ to view their photos and videos across their devices. ‌iCloud Photos‌ is available on iPhones and iPads running iOS 8.3 or later and Macs running OS X Yosemite or later.

Popular Stories

Apple Watch Ultra Night Mode Screen

Apple Watch Ultra 3 Launching Later This Year With Two Key Upgrades

Wednesday July 2, 2025 1:13 pm PDT by
The long wait for an Apple Watch Ultra 3 appears to be nearly over, and it is rumored to feature both satellite connectivity and 5G support. Apple Watch Ultra's existing Night Mode In his latest Power On newsletter, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said that the Apple Watch Ultra 3 is on track to launch this year with "significant" new features, including satellite connectivity, which would let you...
iPhone 17 Pro in Hand Feature Lowgo

iPhone 17 Pro Coming Soon With These 14 New Features

Friday July 4, 2025 1:05 pm PDT by
Apple's next-generation iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are just over two months away, and there are plenty of rumors about the devices. Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models. Latest Rumors These rumors surfaced in June and July:Apple logo repositioned: Apple's logo may have a lower position on the back of the iPhone 17 Pro models, compared to previous...
iPhone 17 Pro in Hand Feature Lowgo

iPhone 17 Pro Max Battery Capacity Leaked

Thursday July 3, 2025 5:40 am PDT by
The iPhone 17 Pro Max will feature the biggest ever battery in an iPhone, according to the Weibo leaker known as "Instant Digital." In a new post, the leaker listed the battery capacities of the iPhone 11 Pro Max through to the iPhone 16 Pro Max, and added that the iPhone 17 Pro Max will feature a battery capacity of 5,000mAh: iPhone 11 Pro Max: 3,969mAh iPhone 12 Pro Max: 3,687mAh...
iPhone 17 Pro Lower Logo Magsafe

iPhone 17 Pro's New MagSafe Design Revealed in Leaked Photo

Wednesday July 2, 2025 8:37 am PDT by
The upcoming iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are rumored to have a slightly different MagSafe magnet layout compared to existing iPhone models, and a leaked photo has offered a closer look at the supposed new design. The leaker Majin Bu today shared a photo of alleged MagSafe magnet arrays for third-party iPhone 17 Pro cases. On existing iPhone models with MagSafe, the magnets form a...
airpods pro 2

AirPods Pro 3 to Help Maintain Apple's Place in Earbud Market Amid Increasing Low-Cost Competition

Thursday July 3, 2025 7:25 am PDT by
Apple's position as the dominant force in the global true wireless stereo (TWS) earbud market is expected to continue through 2025, according to Counterpoint Research. The forecast outlines a 3% year-over-year increase in global TWS unit shipments for 2025, signaling a transition from rapid growth to a more mature phase for the category. While Apple is set to remain the leading brand by...
Wi Fi WiFi General Feature

iOS 26 Adds a Useful New Wi-Fi Feature to Your iPhone

Wednesday July 2, 2025 6:36 am PDT by
iOS 26 and iPadOS 26 add a smaller yet useful Wi-Fi feature to iPhones and iPads. As spotted by Creative Strategies analyst Max Weinbach, sign-in details for captive Wi-Fi networks are now synced across iPhones and iPads running iOS 26 and iPadOS 26. For example, while Weinbach was staying at a Hilton hotel, his iPhone prompted him to fill in Wi-Fi details from his iPad that was already...
iOS 18

Apple Releases Second iOS 18.6 Public Beta

Tuesday July 1, 2025 10:19 am PDT by
Apple today seeded the second betas of upcoming iOS 18.6 and iPadOS 18.6 updates to public beta testers, with the betas coming just a day after Apple provided the betas to developers. Apple has also released a second beta of macOS Sequoia 15.6. Testers who have signed up for beta updates through Apple's beta site can download iOS 18.6 and iPadOS 18.6 from the Settings app on a compatible...

Top Rated Comments

ibrewster Avatar
28 months ago

It's obvious that it was a useless feature
It might have been useless to some people, but I personally liked the fact that when I took a photo on my phone, it showed up on my computer - WITHOUT having to pay for the privilege of having all 18,000 photos in my library stored in the cloud.
Score: 69 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Böhme417 Avatar
28 months ago
UGH. :mad:

I use photo stream all the time. I do not use iCloud Photos and don’t want to, but photo stream made it easy to show someone a picture on my iPad that I had recently taken on my phone without the need to have my entire flipping library synced.
Score: 50 Votes (Like | Disagree)
goonie4life9 Avatar
28 months ago
Gotta get those subscriptions numbers up!
Score: 39 Votes (Like | Disagree)
dannyyankou Avatar
28 months ago

?
This makes no sense.

It's obvious that it's a useless feature since it was developed before the entire photo library was moved to the cloud, not because it doesn't count against iCloud storage. Shared photo albums doesn't count against iCloud storage so you're saying Apple is going to axe that too?
In the announcement, Apple says "Moving forward, iCloud Photos ('https://support.apple.com/kb/HT204264') is the best way to keep the photos and videos you take up to date across all your devices and safely stored in iCloud. "

And then when you click on the iCloud Photos link in the support document, it says this-

"If you need more iCloud storage
When you sign up for iCloud, you automatically get 5GB of free storage. If you need more space, and access to premium features, you can upgrade to iCloud+."

I mean come on, they want people to buy more storage.
Score: 32 Votes (Like | Disagree)
dannyyankou Avatar
28 months ago
Photo Stream doesn't count against iCloud storage. It's obvious why apple is doing this. That being said, very few people probably use it anymore.
Score: 29 Votes (Like | Disagree)
zorinlynx Avatar
28 months ago
This was a cool feature before iCloud Photo Library came along; I loved seeing all my photos on my Mac automatically without having to transfer them.

However, iCloud Photo Library really does make the feature a bit redundant. The only issue I can see is some very old devices losing access to the latest photos you've taken.
Score: 26 Votes (Like | Disagree)