Accessing photos on iCloud?

LaurenRae · Jun 6, 2012

I finally found out how to set my phone so it will automatically back up to iCloud. Somehow, my calendar and contacts were backing up anyway. But I will be traveling, and I want my photos backed up, too, at least until I get back home and can transfer them to my laptop.

When I go to iCloud, though, I still see the same options I did before: Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Find my iPhone (which doesn't find my iPhone, but that's a topic for another thread), and Work. I don't see photos, and clicking things only gets me to a menu where I can reset my photos, but not access them.

What am I missing? Or is iCloud not really for storing photos?

Thanks!

Skull One · Jun 6, 2012

Photo Stream is part of the iCloud. But your iPhone won't backup to it until it is on a WiFi connection. Also be aware, that Photo Stream only handles the last 1000 photos.

LaurenRae · Jun 6, 2012

According to my iPhone, it would back up when it was plugged in, locked, and connected to WiFi. I had engaged all three. When I unlocked the phone later, it said that it had backed up. But I don't see my pictures on iCloud. In fact, I don't even see a way to restore my iPhone, should I do something stupid like drop it into a swimming pool and need to get a new phone.

zig9449 · Jun 6, 2012

LaurenRae said:
According to my iPhone, it would back up when it was plugged in, locked, and connected to WiFi. I had engaged all three. When I unlocked the phone later, it said that it had backed up. But I don't see my pictures on iCloud. In fact, I don't even see a way to restore my iPhone, should I do something stupid like drop it into a swimming pool and need to get a new phone.

You restore from an iCloud backup by going up Settings> General> Reset> Reset All Settings.

After that the phone will reboot...it will then be at the initial setup screen where you can choose to restore from an iCloud backup.

LaurenRae · Jun 6, 2012

Thanks!

Nutronic · Jun 24, 2012

How do you access iCloud?

zig9449 · Jun 24, 2012

Nutronic said:
How do you access iCloud?

Depends where you want to access iCloud from.

And iCloud isn't really something you "access". It's just for storing backups, data and pictures so you can download the data to your device after restore.

Blueshirt · Jul 4, 2012

Well, you can access your iCloud mail (@me.com) by logging in to www.iCloud.com on a PC or Mac, and use that as a webmail client, as well as edit your [backed up] contacts/stuff online etc. should you need to.

Dave G · Sep 23, 2012

I've been looking all over for the answer to this problem. I wanted to upgrade to IOS6 on my iPhone 4. It tells me that I don't have enough space and need to free some up. OK, I thought I would try iCloud to transfer a bunch of photos from the phone to the cloud and then take them from the cloud and save them on my PC. I installed the iCloud Control Panel. It says I have the photo stream selected and iCloud storage is almost 5GB. This kinda tells me that all the photos that I had on my phone have been zapped to the cloud. How do I get them to download to my PC? There's nothing on the control panel screen that helps.