Apple urges iPhone users to take action before photos are permanently deleted next month

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By James Kay

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Apple has announced that they will permanently delete a photo album from your products next month, and users should act fast to save their images.

Many people will want to take heed of this warning, as over 127 million Americans own an iPhone according to reports.

As per the Daily Mail, Apple has announced that they will be shutting down My Photo Stream, which is an album that stores your photos from the previous 30 days.

The shutdown means that as of June 26, your phone will have stopped automatically uploading photos to My Photo Stream, and on July 26, everything in there will be gone forever.

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Apple users are being encouraged to save their My Photo Stream images to their devices. Credit: Peter Macdiarmid / Getty

So, if you are reading this on an iPhone right now, head to your photos app and ensure that everything in My Photo Stream is saved to your device.

The alternative to My Photo Stream is to store your photos on iCloud (if you don't have space on your device). Though extra storage will cost you.

On its support page, Apple states: "My Photo Stream is scheduled to be shut down on July 26, 2023. As part of this transition, new photo uploads to My Photo Stream from your devices will stop one month before, on June 26, 2023."

The page continues: "If a photo you want isn't already in your library on a particular iPhone, iPad, or Mac, make sure that you save it to your library on that device."

My Photo Stream has been around since 2011 after it was introduced by the late Steve Jobs. It allowed users with multiple Apple devices to access their photos no matter what device they had been taken on.

For example, if you were to take a photo with an iPhone, it would also appear on your Macbook without having to physically transfer it.

To save your photos, click on albums on whatever device you're using and find the My Photo Stream folder. Once in the album, click on Select in the top right-hand corner and choose the photos you want to save to your device.

Once you're happy with the images you want to save, click save images to your device, and you won't be at any risk of losing them.

For those who already pay for iCloud storage, this news probably won't impact you - but those that use the free version of iCloud will most likely need to pay for a little bit more storage, especially for avid photo takers.

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My Photo Stream has been on Apple products since 2011. Credit: Justin Sullivan / Getty

The free version of iCloud holds 5GB of storage, which equates to roughly 3,500 images. But if you're like me and you never delete anything, it's easy to surpass this amount quite quickly.

The reasoning behind the sudden decision to abandon My Photo Stream is unclear, though many are speculating that it's an attempt to get people to pay for the upgraded version of iCloud.

If you take an image on your phone it will be stored on the device anyway, but unless saved to iCloud, it will not appear on any of your other devices.

Best get saving those photos!

Featured image credit: Justin Sullivan / Getty