Apple to discontinue 'My Photo Stream' feature in July

Apple’s My Photo Stream services, the free photo syncing service introduced with iCloud in 2011, will be shut down in late July, said the tech giant.

On July 26 the feature will discontinue. It 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 only disadvantage is the photos are not saved in high-resolution.

After the launch of iCloud Photos in 2014, this feature has not been much in use. iCloud Photos offers storage of all photos and videos in high resolution and also makes it available on all devices.  

Apple, however, gives a measly 5GB of free storage on iCloud. The storage can be increased by buying an iCloud+ subscription. The technology giant said that it will stop uploading photos automatically to My Photo Stream on June 26 and after 30 days on the server. The photos will be discarded automatically when the service closes on July 26.   

Apple says that since photos on My Photos Stream are still stored in high-resolution on at least one device, it is unlikely that users 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 iPhone, go to the My Photo Stream tab and select the photos that need to be saved and then hit the Share button, to save them to the device library. The process is the same for Macs and iPads.