Apple is shutting down iCloud's 'My Photo Stream' feature

(Image: Apple)

Apple has announced that it will shut down My Photo Stream services, the free photo syncing service introduced with iCloud in 2011, in late July.

The feature, which will be discontinued on July 26,  allows users to upload up to 1,000 of their last 30 days of images and videos to the cloud for free. It automatically syncs photos on Apple devices and the photos uploaded through the feature do not count toward storage quota. The tradeoff is that the photos aren’t saved in high-resolution.

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The feature has not been much in use after the introduction of iCloud Photos in 2014.

iCloud Photos stores all images and videos in high resolution and makes it available across your devices. Apple, however, gives a measly 5GB of free storage on iCloud. The storage can be increased by buying an iCloud+ subscription.

The Cupertino–based technology giant says it will automatically stop uploading photos to My Photo Stream on June 26 and after 30 days on the server, they will automatically be discarded when the service shuts down on July 26.

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Apple says that since photos on My Photos Stream are still stored in high-resolution on at least one device, it is unlikely you will lose any photos. The company still recommends users save important photos on their device before the shutdown.

To save photos, open the Photos app on your iPhone, go to the My Photo Stream tab and select the photos you want to save and then hit the Share button, to save them to your device library. The process is the same for Macs and iPads.