Apple Decides to Shut Down the Apple iOS "My Photo Stream" Service

Apple recently released an important message stating that it will shut down the “My Photo Stream” service on Apple iOS starting July 26, 2023, and make some related adjustments.

The My Photo Stream service can share photos stored in the Apple iPhone and iPad photo library app directly to your other Apple devices through a one-month short-term sharing mechanism, bypassing iCloud cloud storage, and allowing image editing and sharing on them. It is a handy little trick the author uses to cut corners.

Therefore, Apple’s shutdown of this service this time inevitably makes the author conspiratorially think that this is to promote iCloud, making everyone pay to rent more online space so everyone can store more photos, and then can only become more and more dependent, spending more and more money[1].

Details of the My Photo Stream Service Shutdown

First, to smoothly carry out the shutdown of the service, Apple will stop uploading new photos to “My Photo Stream” on June 26.

All photos uploaded to iCloud during the service period will still be retained in iCloud for 30 days (counted from the upload date), and Apple will also provide the option to download these photos.

Before they shut it down, please make sure your photos already exist on at least one device. As long as you have a device containing the original photos, you will not lose any photos during this transition period.

If you have some particularly important photos, we recommend you save them to that device’s library to ensure their safety and availability.

In addition, in Apple’s official introduction, it specifically mentions that you can use the iCloud Photos feature to replace the My Photo Stream service, allowing our photos to be synced and managed - the intention is obvious.

Appendix

1. Beginner Warning: Apple “Photos Library” Notes and Operation Tutorial (Applicable to Apple macOS Mac & Macbook)