One of the first things many people noticed yesterday after upgrading to iOS 8 was that the Camera Roll and Photo Stream sections in the Photos app were completely missing. This left many people confused and alarmed as to where their Camera Roll photos went, and understandably so. However, your photos are not gone and nothing is missing. They're just in a different location now.
Where are all my Camera Roll photos?
Upon launching the Photos app for the first time after updating to iOS 8, you'll immediately notice that your dedicated Camera Roll and Photo Stream are now gone. Instead, there is a section entitled "Recently Added" that is followed by any albums you've created on your iPhone or iPad and a few default ones such as panos, videos, and a few others. Default albums can not be deleted. I'm not sure how long photos stay in Recently Added before being bumped out and into the Photos tab, but my hunch tells me it's somewhere around 30 days.
iOS 7 last year introduced new ways to organize photos into years, collections, and moments. Up until iOS 8, if you didn't want to use those sections and preferred thumbing through the thousands of photos in your Camera Roll, you had that option. Now with iOS 8, to view older photos that aren't fairly recent, you'll need to either use the Photos tab or create albums in the Albums tab in order to customize and sort photos the way you'd like.
The bottom line is this — the Camera Roll has been nixed in favor of using the Photos tab. Recently Added on the other hand is simply a collection of all your recently taken photos across all your devices. So just think of Recently Added as replacing your personal Photo Stream.
So what is iCloud Photo Library?
iCloud Photo Library is currently available in beta form. However, some folks don't seem to have this option while others do. I haven't been able to figure out a pattern as to why it's available to some and not others, iCloud Drive enabled or not.
Initially, many thought that iCloud Photo Library would be fully launched with iOS 8, but it seems as if Apple doesn't feel quite comfortable yet with removing the beta label. So by default it is turned off, and this could be causing a lot of the confusion.
Essentially, iCloud Photo Library is part of Apple's new iCloud Drive service. It will replace the way Photo Stream currently exists, mainly the 1,000 photos or 30 days limit. Instead, iCloud Photo Library will store as many photos as your iCloud Drive storage can hold. It also will sync any albums you've created on any iPhone or iPad that's also got iCloud Photo Library and iCloud Drive enabled, which means your photos stay organized and look the same no matter what device you're viewing them on.
Basically, iCloud Photo Library is all your photos, available everywhere. When OS X Yosemite launches next month, it will also support iCloud Photo Library as part of iCloud Drive. A point worth bringing up is that when you enable iCloud Photo Library in iOS 8, you'll receive a popup warning if you have any photos synced from iTunes. They will be removed and replaced with iCloud Photo Library.
So that begs the question, how do you transfer older photos from your computer to iCloud Photo Library? And the answer is that when iCloud Drive is available to the public for Windows and OS X Yosemite next month, you'll be able to drag and drop any photos you want to iCloud Photo Library, and they'll then be available to you on all your devices that support iCloud Photo Library.
Apple has announced that a brand new Photos app for Mac will be released in early 2015, which should make syncing and managing photos even less confusing.
How do I enable iCloud Photo Library?
In order to enable iCloud Photo Library, just go to Settings > Photos & Camera > and turn ON the option for iCloud Photo Library at the top. And remember that since the service is still beta, you should always make sure you have backups of your data, in this case photos, before you test it out.
I'm also assuming at this point that since iCloud Photo Library is part of iCloud Drive, you'll need to have that enabled as well. If anyone has information to the contrary, be sure to drop me a note in the comments. If you aren't sure how to enable iCloud Drive, we can walk you through via the link below, but also be sure you read the link explaining why you may want to wait in order to upgrade.
What if I don't enable iCloud Drive and iCloud Photo Library right now?
You can absolutely choose not to upgrade to iCloud Drive or iCloud Photo library right away. If you don't, the only difference you'll notice is that you'll have to use the Photos section in order to access older photos. You can also upgrade your iCloud storage without having to use iCloud Drive right now. Any storage that's added will instantly be available to you as well. Just keep in mind that album syncing across devices won't work just yet, with the exception of photos that you mark as favorites.
There are lots of other benefits that iCloud Photo Library and iOS 8 bring to the table such as the ability to sync edits and more. If you want an even more detailed explanation of the Photos app and how it hooks into iCloud Drive and iCloud Photo Library, hit the link below.
See also:
Reader comments
Yes, Camera Roll is gone in iOS 8 — Here's where it went and why!
Hmmm, when I go to Settings > Photos & Camera > I do not see the option for iCloud Photo Library. I do have iCloud Drive turned on. What am I missing?
Go to Settings>iCloud and then make sure iCloud drive is on, go through that process, and then under that option you'll see a photos button. Tap on that, and at the top of the new page you'll se the beta option, slide it to on, confirm and you'll have done it.
I have iCloud drive turned on. The only option at the top is to turn photo stream on. There is no beta option...
As Ally says it may not be available to everyone yet. Perhaps Apple is testing it based on a limited audience.
My 5s running iOS 8 does not have the option. Although it did get rid of camera roll and is syncing edits across recently added to my iPad.
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Unfortunately I am one of those that do not have the iCloud Photo Library. I upgraded my iPhone 5 to iOS 8 and no go. I still have Photo Stream but it's not in the photos app so at this point I am pretty screwed being able to manage the pictures in iCloud. Hopefully the iPhone 6 I get Friday will have it.
I also have an iPhone 5 and when I go to photos and camera settings, the first option is "my photo stream" I don't have an option for iCloud Photo Library. Has ios 8 not installed properly on my device?
I have a 5 and have the same thing, I wonder if the whole iCloud photo library is a 5S and later devices? I'll find out when my iPhone 6 arrives tomorrow. However I really dislike that the camera roll is gone as it's really messy than ever in my opinion
Nope, my girlfriend doesn't have the option on a 5s and she has iCloud Drive enabled - I feel it's random and either a glitch, or an intentional testing pool that's only deployed to a limited audience.
I have never liked Photo Stream. Anything I take a photo of with my phone is for momentary use only, then gets deleted. Anything that inadvertently wound up being uploaded got summarily deleted, sometimes requiring deletion on multiple devices (hence why I HATE PHOTOSTREAM!).
If I do nothing regarding this replacement, will it stay disabled? I am not planning on activating iCloud Drive unless Apple forces it on me.
You won't ever be forced to put anything in the cloud. However, your photo organization structure will change - camera roll becomes photos section and recently added is recent photos only.
You can turn off My Photostream in Settings.
They improved the way photos delete from the photo stream a while back. When you delete a photo, and as long as it's within the 30 day time limit, it would delete from all devices. Originally, you had to manually delete from each device.
You can, and probably should, activate iCloud Drive when Yosemite is out. It won't affect how Photostream works.
This Photos app is getting a little too "helpful".
I too do not have this option on either my 5s or my iPad after the iOS 8 upgrade. This is one of the features I was looking forward to, and I even upgraded my iCloud storage amount to accommodate it.
Same here!
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COld do with a decent video walk through of the new photos set up...
I find the the new set up much easier to find old photos and with tapping the search icon you can search by a date or location. Much easier to navigate through thousands of photos.
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My problem with this solution is 1. My photos are not sorted chronologically. 2. Without a dedicated photo stream folder there is no way to easily identify photos that are from photos stream. Therefore photos will end up being removed from devices without people being able to save it to the device if they wish before the 30 day photo stream limit is up.
They absolutely are. The photos tab contains every photo on your device and in the cloud. and it is 100% chronological.
Actually, this is probably a bug. If you turn off Photo Stream and then turn it back on, photos in Recently Added are not in a chronological order. They are in some random order that Photo Stream decides to download them—and it changes each time you turn on/off Photo Stream. They must not be storing them properly or perhaps they are being downloaded in batches on a file size basis?
The PHOTOS tab is in chrono order and not the recently added.
Unfortunately, the Wallpaper setting doesn't seem to have access to the "Photos" tab, only the "Albums" tab. This seems too stupid to be intentional. Am I missing something?
I noticed this too, and am hoping it's a bug
I hope it is a bug too! Per my comment below, many of my 3rd party apps can only access the Albums tab. I want them to be able to access all of them.
I wonder do the pictures count against your iCloud storage? Was just a little confused about that part
The new pricing scheme for iCloud Drive eliminates the 1000k photo cap and 30 days. they use your storage. however many photos your storage plan can hold, it will hold.
I took a bunch of pictures over the past few days and they are gone from the camera. Where the heck did they go?
I ran into the same problem, but found all mine in the "recently added" section. I filed them into an album after that to ensue I don't lose track of them. I don't have the iCloud Photo Library either but I feel it would only confuse matters even more at this point until Yosemite and the full features of iCloud Drive are publicly released.
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THIS IS DUMB. How much of a strain would it have been to Apple to keep the "option" of having a camera roll and photo stream album in the photos app. I hate when companies force people to assimilate to the new standard. Now for example if I want to delete a photo off my phone (camera roll) but keep it in the cloud, I have to look thru the collections section and determine which one is uploaded where, a question I may get wrong.
Additionally I have a Mac, I don't have iCloud drive enabled yet because I am hearing it would cause problems. But this photos app takes advantage of a feature that isn't fully up and running yet, sounds like iOS 8 is a little premature.
What about icloud photos. Are they going to keep downloading to your device passed 1000· It would be really stupid to have all these photos using your precious space on your storage. It was stupid before when it took 1GB of your space weather you wanted it or not, but now it could be disastrous.
Why can't they do it like any damn cloud company. Keep the things separated, cloud and local. You can look at the cloud photos but once you are done with it they simply get erased from your hard drive and stay in cloud. Your local photos stay on your device if you choose so. Why is this so complicated with Apple. Seams like they never could do cloud services right. It is laughable to have cloud photos always downloading to your device and use up precious space.
I hate the way photos are managed in iOS 8. It's a huge let down. I hate how deleting a picture doesn't actually delete it but flags it for deletion. Then you have to either wait 30 days or manually delete it. Give me an option to turn that safety net off. Deleting photos is generally how I clear space I want that to be fast and I have never accidentally deleted the wrong photo. I back up to my computer before I cull so I never worry about losing something.
The new interface doesn't seem to indicate what photos are in the cloud and what are on my physical device. If that's the case will deleting a photo that is on my device also delete it in the cloud?
I don't like the Photos tab. It's too fidgety. I don't like how it will display one picture per line if I only took one picture on a particular day. It makes mass deletion a pain. On iOS 7 I never used it. I preferred the simple gird of camera roll. It also appears that with this change there's now additional work for apps to gain access to all photos.
Presently many of the apps that have been updated to support iOS 8 can't access anything but Recently Added and any other album I've created. This limits me to about 200 photos that apps like Facebook, LINE, etc. can access. This is totally not the way I want interact with photos on my iPhone and iPad. I can work around this by adding all photos in the photos tab to an album, but I shouldn't have to. Also with this update, there is no way to know how many photos are on the phone. The photos tab does not show the count.
I like iOS 8 so far, but photo management has taken a serious hit.
I could not agree more with everything you've said! I have the exact complaints! The biggest is not knowing which photos are on my local storage versus photos in the cloud. Recently Added blends the two.
There is also a weird glitch with the Photos section. Some photos only show a white thumbnail. When that photo is selected, it is visible momentarily then it becomes a white screen.
So... Still no separate album for screenshots? Why?
Thanks for the great article as usual, Ally.
I do agree that the new photos app will make it easier to store /access the photos stored there, and am assuming thay iPhoto/Aperture will get one last update in October when Yosemite is released to allow access, too. Wondering if it might make sense to copy my iPhone library to iCloud once it's available.
I currently use Flickr to back up all my iPhone pictures, and post WWDC, uploaded every photo I had on my iMac to Flickr. Been pretty happy with that option so far. And now to do the same with my iMovies…
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"I do agree that the new photos app will make it easier to store /access the photos stored there..." You're kidding, right? Or do you work for Apple?
My concern so far is that the Photos app on my iPhone 5 and iPad Mini Retina are not acting the same.
I can edit and favorite all my photos on my iPhone, but can only favorite a couple of images one iPad. Additionally, every time I try to edit an image on my iPad it tells me I have to create a duplicate and edit the copy rather than the original version. I would presume that the Photos app would act the same regardless of device.
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Didn't need iCloud Drive on my 4s. Worked perfectly.
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i downloaded ios 8 for my iphone 5c and it swiped all my apps, all my contacts, all my videos and the majority of my photos. I wasn't too bothered about the apps and contacts because i managed to get them back quite easily but i am however very annoyed about my videos and photos as i had a lot of precious stuff including photos of a family member who recently passed away. Is there anyway i can get this stuff back or has it completely gone?
The new photo look is absolutely stupid. "Recently Deleted" i can't move folder to bottom and hide it WTF? iOS8 (Thumbs Down)
I wish Apple would just allow the user to decide what he or she wants to do with there own photos. I hate the moments view. And getting rid of camera roll just to force people to use it is poor judgement on their part. If no one likes it get rid of it. I wanna be able to distribute all my pictures into albums that I want from the camera roll. Not a copy of it the actual photo. That way it is removed from the camera roll and I can look at newer pictures as I take them instead of having to scroll looking for it.
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Apple's changes to how iOS8 on the iPhone handles photos really sucks. I can't post pics older than 30 days to Facebook, Twitter or Instagram now. It only allows me to post photos more recent than 30 days. I tried creating a new album on my phone for the older photos, but it doesn't show up when I try posting a photo to Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
I have the iCloud Photo Library Beta option and I do not have iCloud Drive enabled at the moment. Im also in the Yosemite beta so Im not sure if that affects anything.
The photos app in iOS 8 has quite a few problems, at least for people who actually take photographs, store and edit them on a Mac, and sync them via iTunes.
All synced events have gone from chronological to a completely random order, making that unusable.
Furthermore, the Photos tab continues to be as unusable as it was with iOS 7, since synced photos that are also in Photostream are shown twice.
And, to add insult to injury, scrolling within the app is laggy and full of stutters.
Tested on iPad Air and iPhone 5s, and I do not seem to be the only one with that problem - https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6537791
It appears Apple wants to get rid of Events, after forcing them in the foreground just a few years back. Problem is, they want to replace it with the automatic algorithms of the Photos tab, which can not replace what Events do.
How to you post photos... I have 1000's and when I go to make a photo attachement on facebook under someone else's post I only get to choose from camera roll that only has 42 photos..... or even post from my wall??? VERY HARD TO USE!!!!!!!!!! HELP!!!
Now it's harder to use. What's up with that? It's also more difficult to delete photos. Hope I get used to it soon! I'll be watching imore.com for more info!
"The bottom line is this — the Camera Roll has been nixed in favor of using the Photos tab. Recently Added on the other hand is simply a collection of all your recently taken photos across all your devices. So just think of Recently Added as replacing your personal Photo Stream."
This is not entirely true. When I take a picture with my iphone it appears in the photos tab of my iPad and vice versa. It also does appear in the recently added album on both. This is with ios8 on both devices without icloud photo library beta enabled, which isn't even an option for me
Terrible idea to remove camera roll!
the main complaint I have is that APPLE makes us do it the way they want it not the way I want it. I want OPTIONS, I do not want to have to redo what I spent hours doing and now it is all sorted by date. I am about to change to another phone over the arrogance of APPLE. It happened when They updated the last time, and now I never use NOTES< Calender, Reminders, And others as I can't configure them so I can read them or use them like I want. Now there is just more. YES there are some great changes in IOS 8 but there are some real dogs too. LET US DO IT OUR WAY when you learn that lesson you will take all the business.
Many forums state "don't panic, your photos aren't lost they are just in a different place", I wish that were true. Photos taken by my camera using my iPad are there yes, now on the photos tab however all my photos saved from facebook or sent to me via iMessage or screen dumps that were on my photo stream have now gone. I have no option to turn on the beta photo library, I'm not sure if that would bring them back anyway. Not impressed.
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On investigating further, I appear to have a few photos taken a week or so ago and then it jumps back to January 2014 and then older. They seem to have lost anything in between for this year. Thank god my dropbox camera roll backup was switched on. I can't believe they just lose your photos. This is bad.
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Can anyone help - updated iPhone 5 to iOS 8 and iPad air to ios8. However, the videos from my phone have not synced to my ipad - I thought this was one of the massive changes for ios 8? Is it because the icloud photo library is not enabled yet? Ive opted in to iCloud Drive during the set up. If anyone can help it would be appreciated
Upped to iOs8 on Friday, this is very helpful. Clicked on "Upgrade to iCloud Drive" (I still have an iPhone5, waiting until November for contract renewal to get a 6+) and it's in an "upgrading" loop for like 10 minutes already. Should it take this long?
Why couldn't they just leave the camera roll alone? It was much much simpler. I don't want all my photos on all my devices just on my phone. Apple is beginning to get on my nerves. So just my opinion.
Wondering if anyone can help. I have shared my events in iPhoto to iCloud and they have stopped up loading at M. Does anyone have an idea why?
As we, yes I am included, continue to allow a company that makes products we really can do without (the competitors' products all seem to be so much better, just not as cool-looking or slick to the touch) dictate what is best for us, I took about 5 minutes, added a photo album called "Camera Roll" and painstakingly added all of my photos to this album so I won't have to fiddle with all of those tiny thumbnails in "Years". For those who need to know how to do this, launch the "Photos" app, tap "Albums", then "Edit". Tap the "+" sign in the top left corner and add the album named "Camera Roll" or whatever you want to name it. Tap "Save" and the album will take you to the photos to add. It is annoying that there is no "Select All" to add all of the photos, but then remember how long it took Apple to add a "Select All" to delete junk mail. I'm sure my work-around is riddled with problems that I can't even begin to anticipate, but I'll just deal with that matter when the problems occur (and they will). Until I get totally sick of Apple and it's continued "updates for things most of us never asked for", I'll continue to waste my valuable time fixing Apple update fixes that weren't broke to start with. (Sorry about the preposition at the end of the sentence; it just sounded better.)
Seriously considering just uploading my photos automatically to Dropbox and paying for the storage. Simple solution.
Yep, DropBox is the simple reliable solution. Trying to untangle the icloud lunacy while paying for it is an exercise in frustration. DropBox for no extra money just bumped my paid subscription to 1TB of storage that works.
I have a 6 and no iCloud Photo Library here. Allyson, the photos that are in the iCloud library, can you view them on a PC?
Everyone get your free 30 GB of Onedrive storage and backup your pics there.
I've been really tempted to switch back to iPhone since the 6 plus was released, but after finding out about this camera roll missing thing, I think I've changed my mind! I think I'll stick with my 1520!
Give us back camera roll immediately. This is the dumbest thing apple has ever done
and NO I have no need for your sodding iCloud I am steering well clear of that. This loss of camera roll is a pure and unadulterated attempt to force us onto the cloud. I manage my photo roll methodically keeping less than 100 photos in the roll many of which date back to iPhone 4 now displaying these photos is a major pain in the neck!
Hey Allyson, I know you were saying you weren't sure of the rhyme of reason of who gets the invite when they open up photos. I believe its people that opt in for iCloud Drive during the setup assistant. People who stick with no iCloud Drive simply can't have the best of both worlds, therefore it doesn't ask... Could be wrong but that's what I've noriced
I'm running iOS 8 on both my iPhone 5 and iPad Air. iCloud Drive is enabled and I see options for My Photo Stream and iCloud Photo sharing that I have turned on, but no photo library. Not sure if it's a bug or what.
Does anyone know how to delete pictures from iPhone but keep them on photostream with the iOS 8? Previously I used to delete my camera roll but keep photos on photostream- this then freed up storage on my phone. Now with all photos lumped in one memories album, If I delete pics from here they seem to be permanently deleted. Currently my photos are taking up 3.3GB of storage which I would like to reduce if possible but keep ,y pics in photostream
I have an iphone 6 and I have the option for iCloud Photo Library(Beta). However, when I turn it on, it tells me "We're adding users daily. Please come back soon to start using iCloud Photo Library". So I guess they are slowly adding users. When I upgraded my iPhone 5 to ios 8, there was no option for iCloud Photo Library.
Can someone tell me, if I upgrade to iCloud drive on my iPhone will my photostream work on my mac or will it not work until the update for OS X Yosemite?
Hi, can someone PLEASE help me! I have an iPhone 5S and I have upgraded to the new iOS8.2 software. Usually I upload my photos to iPhoto on my Mac and then I delete the photos off my phone once I've uploaded them. When I upgraded my software, EVERY PHOTO that I had ever taken was re-uploaded to my phone! So there's now over 8,000 photos and videos. All these photos are stored in my iPhoto on my Mac, so I don't want them on my phone. It seems to be running slow and I think it's because almost all my 64gb is now being used. Can anyone suggest how I can delete all these photos off my phone in one go or do I have to do it individually?? Thanks!
I'm curious about privacy now that the Camera Roll and Photo Stream are gone. I'd like for my photos to be saved, but would like the option of deciding which ones go to "the cloud" and which ones to delete. How do you configure your phone to store your pics, but not share them with others?
Reason 1:
Women are very picky about their pics, you might take 20 before you finally decide you actually like one of them. so of course you don't want to accidentally share a bunch of bad pics with someone or have to go through them all over again on the cloud as well as on your phone.
Reason 2:
My 10 year old niece shared her photo stream with me. I had no idea this meant when I back up my phone on iTunes, she would get everything in MY Photo Stream. Around that same time, some of my guy friends had been doing a lot of working out and they sent me some pics of themselves "flexing" with no shirts on. Nothing pornographic about it at all, but not suitable for a 10 year old. The next day I looked at the shared photo stream and sure enough, the "shirtless guy pics" were in there for her to see right along with her pics. I almost had a panic attack, imagined my brother-in-law driving to my house to strangle me, and then realized that I had to uncheck the photo stream box in iTunes to get the pics off of my niece's photo stream.
So, how do I configure my photos and this iCloud thing to be private unless I choose to share it? Also, what happens if I "Set Up Family Sharing"?
Can someone please explain how adding Albums works? For example, if I take a picture it will show up in the "Recent Photos" folder for 30 days before being dumped off into the Photos section with moments/years. If I take that photo and move it into an album that I have created, it still shows in Recents. So does this mean that I now have two copies of the same photo or is the one moved to the album I created just a link to the original? My concern is that after doing this for many photos then twice the storage space will be used. At that point, how does deletion work? If I now delete the photos out of the album I created, would the original photo be deleted as well or would I have to delete them from both locations?
Thanks!
My problem with the disappearance of My Photostream seems to be the opposite of everyone else. Our family setup going back to the beginnings of Phitostream is such that any photo taken on one device appears everywhere. I used to be able to delete photos from My Photostream which would then remove them from the other devices, but keep them on my iPhone. This worked perfectly for me/us. I now find the deleting a photo from Recently Added means it is deleted from everywhere and there seems to be no way of keeping certain photos just on my device.
I seem to be the only person complaining about this. Is there any way to get this functionality back?
You are definitely not alone.
That's sort of good to know. Progress is supposed to improve the way we do things not totally screw them up.
I just hope Apple fix this and bring back the My Photostream album with its original functionality.
For iOS 8 users SixAxis LLC has created an app called "CamRoll for Photo Album" that automatically creates an actual album called Camera Roll in your photo app and add all your photos and videos to it. Check it https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/camroll-for-photo-album/id927550014?ls=1...
It would be great if Apple get the kinks out be for they send the upgrade out and tell everyone to up grade
Also what I wish.
I found that I can no longer copy a photo from Facebook and put it any where. Is there something I can do, I also can't have so one send me a photo and keep it in my photos, I I really wish they would leave things alone for us people that are not really used to all the new stuff yet. I'm just getting used to using a IPad and now they change things. You can't win
I have an ipad2 with ios 8.2 software. the problem is when i take a photo on camera roll it does not save. i have installed the iclouddrive. the same problem