I have 12 years’ worth of photos and videos (just over 15,000) that I’ve archived into four shared albums. Yes I know they’re not stored at original quality, but I don’t go back to view them often so I can live with that tradeoff for free cloud storage.

With the changes to shared albums in iOS 27, I thought the free ride is over. It turns out that while we can’t create new “legacy” shared albums in iOS 27, Apple is still allowing new uploads to existing legacy shared albums without having to “upgrade” the albums (at least for now).

All of my devices are on iOS 27 so I logged into my iCloud account on someone’s iPad that‘s still running iOS 26.7 and created six new shared albums with one placeholder photo in each, then logged out. Now I theoretically have space to upload 30,000 more photos and videos, which would last me another 20 years…or more likely until Apple turns off the ability to upload to legacy shared albums in a future iOS update.

Thought I’d share this for anyone else looking to continue using legacy shared albums for as long as they can.

Hi all!

Thank you very much for the feedback on the initial idea of Eigenphoto, which had two main pillars: similar photos and large videos. Previous post here.

After testing (and thanks again for signing up and providing extensive feedback), I realised the whole thing was basically:

So I decided to sharply focus on that. Eigenvideo is now on the App Store! It works like a video inbox, with the largest first, and allows you to:

1. AirDrop
2. Compress & Replace
3. Keep
4. Delete

Super simple when you’re running out of space. Not everything needs to be in 4K.

The app is free for now while I figure out product-market fit. For all early adopters, it will stay free forever!

P.S. If you like the app, I’d really appreciate an App Store review. If something isn’t working well, please reach out here or at [support@eigenvideo.app](mailto:support@eigenvideo.app) first. I’d appreciate a chance to fix it, since the app is still early!

This error comes up whenever I try to create a temporary shared album. Please give me a fix.
-iPhone 15 Pro, iOS 27.0.1

My dad recently passed and had an iPhone full of photos. He had his own iCloud account (which I have access to). It makes no sense to retain his account but obviously we'd like to backup his photos and content on one of our own iCloud accounts, or on our family Dropbox.What's the best and fastest way to accomplish this?

I’m a solo developer, and like many people, my camera roll was a mess. 30,000 photos filled with screenshots, receipts, duplicates, and memories I could barely find.

I kept putting off organizing and cleaning it up because it felt like too much work with the built-in iOS photos app.

So I built Handpick, an iPhone app that groups photos by trips and events, lets you keep or delete photos with a simple swipe or in batches, and helps find exact duplicates, similar photos, large files, and more incoming features that matters to you the most.

Everything runs on your phone, everything is synced with the iOS photos app, and nothing gets deleted without confirmation.

The core app is completely free, with optional paid features for more advanced cleanup.

If your camera roll is a mess too, I’d love for you to give it a try and share your honest feedback!

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/handpick-photo-organizer/id6807108354

Curious: If you had to change one thing for the app, what would you change or add?

Is anyone else experiencing permanent data loss every single time they migrate to a new iPhone, or is Apple's iCloud sync system just broken?

I just upgraded to the iPhone 18 Pro from my 15 Pro, and sure enough, a chunk of my iCloud Photos and several important Notes have completely disappeared. They aren't on the new phone, they aren't on the old phone anymore, and they've completely vanished from iCloud.com as well.

This exact same nightmare happened to me several years ago when I upgraded from my 12 Pro to the 15 Pro. Back then, I thought it was a one-off glitch or temporary sync issue, but now it’s officially a pattern.

Every time I do a device transfer or cloud restore:

• Notes: Specific accounts or folders just disconnect or drop local data before forced sync finishes, completely deleting notes that weren't cached properly.
• Photos: Sync stalls mid-transfer, leaving massive gaps in the timeline that never recover—even after leaving both phones plugged in on Wi-Fi for days.

Why does Apple advertise Quick Transfer and iCloud Backup as seamless when basic core app data gets vaporized in the background? You pay a premium for hardware and iCloud storage only to have years of personal notes and photos randomly erased during a routine upgrade.

Has anyone figured out why this keeps happening across generations, or found a way to recover items that disappeared from iCloud completely after a transfer? I'm beyond frustrated.

Hi everyone, I’m desperately looking for some help.

I had somewhere around 30k photos & videos on my iPhone, and I got the dreaded iPhone storage full notification. I currently am using 127.8 of 128 GB. My phone is running like dog shit at the moment. My texts aren’t sending half the time, it’s super slow, and my apps aren’t working.

I’ve deleted SO much. I’m down to 18k photos and videos. My storage used by my camera roll somehow went from 30GB to 60???? Someone tell me what I’m doing wrong here.

I’m a new mom to an 8 month old and I’m absolutely terrified to lose all of the photos of my baby. I’ve tried connecting my phone to my MacBook with my charger & then transferring photos to thumb drives but they won’t load because there’s no enough “disk space” which I have no clue what to do with that.

I’m probably one of the only 25 year olds that has no clue how iCloud works 😅 I’d prefer everything on thumb drives. I’ll legit delete everything pre-baby (back to 2019) and hopefully I’d have LOTS of storage after that.

Help a desperate girl out🫩

I make content for the company i work for me and my manger decided to swap phones because she had a newer one (iPhone 16 Pro) while i had a iPhone 13 Pro and i take most of the videos so we decided to swap, she said she backed my phone up and hers then we did the swap, everything seemed fine and a day later i realized that like 2 years of my camera roll of content was gone, I'm devasted this is work i have done for 2 years and really feel like it will effect my on going work as i need that historic stuff for storytelling and for my own reference. She tried to talk to Apple, but its looking increasingly unlikely. I'm devasted i know its only work but it shows my progression from being an apprentice and i just need it pleaseeeee

Hi everyone,

I’ve already made two posts about this issue, but unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find a solution yet. I’m hoping someone here might have experience with this kind of migration and can help me figure out the best approach.

Here are my previous posts for context:

Previous post 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/googlephotos/s/gYxZXppBHZ
Previous post 2: https://www.reddit.com/r/googlephotos/s/mmlfgIt1xL

I’m trying to move all my photos and videos from Google Photos to Apple Photos/iCloud, but I’m having trouble exporting a shared album that contains photos and videos uploaded by both my wife and me.

Here’s what I’ve figured out so far:

When I export my Google Photos library using Google Takeout, the photos uploaded by my wife to our shared album are missing. The export only includes the photos that belong to my own library.

I’ve tried using the “Save” button to save all the photos from the shared album to my personal Google Photos library, but unfortunately, this doesn’t seem to work. Even after trying this, my wife’s photos are still missing from my export.

I’ve also contacted Google Support, but they weren’t able to help me resolve the issue.

Google Takeout includes the actual photo/video files and separate JSON files containing metadata, such as dates and other information.

My idea for a workaround:

I export my photos and videos using Google Takeout, including the metadata files.

My wife exports the same shared album from her Google Photos account, also including the metadata files.

I combine both exports locally in a folder on my Windows PC, keeping the photo/video files and their corresponding JSON metadata files together.

I then upload the combined collection to Apple Photos/iCloud.

My goal is to make sure that all photos and videos are included, without missing anything, and that they appear in the correct chronological order in Apple Photos, based on their original capture dates rather than their download dates.

My questions:

Would this approach work, or am I overlooking something important?

Will Apple Photos recognize the metadata in the JSON files automatically when I upload the photos, or do I need to merge the metadata into the actual photo files first?

Can I do this properly on a Windows PC without needing a Mac?

Will combining both exports ensure that I have all the photos and videos from the shared album?

And how can I avoid losing the original dates or creating unnecessary duplicates?

I’d really appreciate any advice from anyone who has dealt with a similar Google Photos to Apple Photos migration.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Hi all

So I have like 509gb of data on my Samsung locally

I want to get an iPhone.

Can I go for a 512gb? If I store all my photos on iCloud and still view them in gallery. Is this possible ?

Or should I get a 1tb like my current Samsung?

Thank you for your help

I have a 1.2 TB photo library on an external SSD. My main machine is 1 TB. Can you guys advise me on the best setup to use to back up my photo library whenever I add more photos to it? is iCloud the way? I have a Time capsule that's 2 TB, I also have a NAS synolgy.

Since begnining, I have turned of Photos app to be uploaded to iCloud, yet it has 55mb of data on it. I checked everywhere but all are empty.

And there is no other device's backup attached my account.

How to reclaim it correctly?

Note: I tried to turn off and delete but then a pop-up in Photos app says it will be deleted in 30 days so I undo the delete thinking that all my photos and videos from photos app might got deleted permanently in 30 days.

I built a2g.photos for my own family's needs and thought it'd be useful to others.

You paste a shared album's link (the owner turns on Anyone with the Link, or Public Website on albums made before iOS 27), and it copies the album into a Google Photos album, then keeps adding new photos as people post them. No Apple ID needed; it only uses the album's public link.

It's for families where some people use Android, and for anyone with a Nest Hub, Google TV or Chromecast, which can only show Google Photos. Apple's new HomeView (out Nov 13) can show a shared album directly, so if you're getting one of those you won't need this.

- iOS 27 albums come across at full resolution, videos included. Older albums only share smaller copies, and it takes the largest one Apple offers.

- It only adds photos: deleting from the shared album doesn't delete from Google Photos.

- One album (up to 100 photos) is free; $5/month for unlimited albums and scheduled syncs.

How it works: https://a2g.photos/guides/icloud-shared-album-to-google-photos

Happy to answer questions.

I have a blank pinned item and also a pin named Myrtle Beach. Neither can be deleted. I have tried to repair the library with no luck. I am on a M1 MacBook Air on macos27. Is this a known bug or does anyone know how to delete these?

Hey everyone,

I’m switching from a Samsung Galaxy to an iPhone. My entire photo and video collection—about 1.6 TB—has been stored on OneDrive for years, carefully organized into folders and subfolders.

For example:

CONCERTS → ROCK → METALLICA → MetLife 2025

I’d like to move everything into iCloud Photos, keeping that hierarchy as folders and albums in the iPhone’s Photos app.

I have access to a Mac, but given the size of the collection, I’m also wondering whether a cloud-to-cloud transfer is possible.

Has anyone successfully done something similar? Is there a tool or workflow that preserves the folder structure, original quality, and capture dates for both photos and videos?

I’d really appreciate any firsthand advice before I start moving everything.

I have live photos on, and I found a specific frame I wanted in a photo to be my key photo perfectly as is. However, whenever I click on "make key photo" it for some reason crops out the part that I want included in the photo. Any way to fix this?
I believe the photo was taken on Center Stage, but even if it wasn't, I can't figure out how to select the specific frame I want under live photo edits without my phone cropping out that part which I specifically want included.
Any help?

I'm the dev of Slean, a photo cleaner for iphone and android.

the main idea is simple: it shows the file size on every thumbnail and lets you sort your whole library biggest first. on my own phone the top of that list was mostly old videos and screen recordings I'd forgotten about, and dealing with a few of those freed a lot more space than going through photos one by one.

as a cleaning concept; swiping through thousands of photos one at a time never made much sense to me.

slean also groups duplicates and similar shots, filters screenshots, and can compress photos and videos with a before/after size preview.

I tried to keep the whole thing feeling close to the built-in photos app too, rather than turning cleanup into another busy utility. everything runs on the phone, no account, no ads.

slean.app

would love feedback from people with big libraries. what would you want to see first when you open something like this?

Both I and my wife use iPhone to take pictures of our kids so the pictures are on iCloud but:
1. Each of us have a different library. Shared library exists but face recognition doesn’t work on shared library alone.
2. I would like photos to be sorted into folders with photos of the same kid in the same month. I’m just old school and the flowing gallery does not work for me sometimes.

Any simple solution other than full blown Immich?

I stupidly forgot my passcode to my iPhone and locked myself out permanently and then even more stupidly couldn’t remember the password to my iCloud account so now my iPhone is sitting in recovery and I’m waiting to even be able to reset my password and hopefully recover some contacts and photos from my old phone. It’s looking doubtful because I’m not sure how much was backed up. Is there anything I can do? all of my photos of loved ones were on there as well as everything else important as you can imagine

Please don’t shame me I know I’m stupid I’m desperate I’ll do anything to get these back.