Migrating photos from iCloud to Amazon
November 15, 2022 12:24 AM Subscribe
Spouse has bazillions of photos in iCloud and is bumping up against the storage unit for the next tier. He doesn’t want to spend $9.99/month for 2 TB of iCloud a month when we know we are going to be stuck being Amazon Prime customers forever for living-in-the-boonies reasons and can have unlimited storage there. What’s the best way to move them there?
Is there any way to migrate photos from iCloud to Amazon that does not involve downloading them and then re-uploading them? How would you approach this transition for the least amount of angst and hassle?
Is there any way to migrate photos from iCloud to Amazon that does not involve downloading them and then re-uploading them? How would you approach this transition for the least amount of angst and hassle?
"Amazon Drive is going away in a year (December 31, 2023)."
But Amazon says: "Customers are encouraged to use Amazon Photos to access photo and video files and to use the Amazon Drive website to download and store all other files locally (or with another service) before December 31, 2023."
posted by MrJM at 4:11 AM on November 15, 2022
But Amazon says: "Customers are encouraged to use Amazon Photos to access photo and video files and to use the Amazon Drive website to download and store all other files locally (or with another service) before December 31, 2023."
posted by MrJM at 4:11 AM on November 15, 2022
Supposedly the Amazon Photos desktop app does this automagically.
posted by credulous at 5:15 AM on November 15, 2022
posted by credulous at 5:15 AM on November 15, 2022
I would suggest getting a third place to store the photos since the new ones will not end up in iCloud anymore and so now the only copy is going to be in Amazon Photos. You want at least two copies. Google photos is free, for example.
posted by soelo at 6:54 AM on November 15, 2022
posted by soelo at 6:54 AM on November 15, 2022
Moving large amounts of storage always involves _some_ angst or hassle. I am going to add a little with my suggestion: in addition to using Amazon Photos to move them, _also_ please purchase an external hard drive or drives and copy the photos there as well. Then get some sort of sync tool to keep it synchronized with incremental changes (most sync tools will let you tell it to _only_ sync from the Photos "drive" to the local hard drive.
You want your _own_ copy of your data - in case corporate management decides unlimited storage for customers needs to be severely restricted or go away
posted by TimHare at 9:43 PM on November 15, 2022 [3 favorites]
You want your _own_ copy of your data - in case corporate management decides unlimited storage for customers needs to be severely restricted or go away
posted by TimHare at 9:43 PM on November 15, 2022 [3 favorites]
Emphasizing TimHare. If you don't need a fast drive, you can buy a 2 TB external HDD for like $50!
posted by lalochezia at 4:56 AM on November 16, 2022
posted by lalochezia at 4:56 AM on November 16, 2022
You want at least two copies. Google photos is free, for example.
The first part of that is desperately important. I speak from experience. The local copy of your cloud data doesn’t count, as what happens when your account gets purged by a glitch… and your devices dutifully reflect that before you can fix it?
I’m not at all sure that Google Photos is free and unlimited any more though. It’s certainly not unlimited free for original not-downscaled photos, and I think it’s even limited for all quality levels now (without paying). Also, Google’s perpetually moving goalposts are a worry.
posted by breakfast burrito at 5:42 AM on November 16, 2022
The first part of that is desperately important. I speak from experience. The local copy of your cloud data doesn’t count, as what happens when your account gets purged by a glitch… and your devices dutifully reflect that before you can fix it?
I’m not at all sure that Google Photos is free and unlimited any more though. It’s certainly not unlimited free for original not-downscaled photos, and I think it’s even limited for all quality levels now (without paying). Also, Google’s perpetually moving goalposts are a worry.
posted by breakfast burrito at 5:42 AM on November 16, 2022
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posted by kschang at 2:41 AM on November 15, 2022 [1 favorite]