As you probably already know, when you enable Photo Stream from your iPhone (or other iOS device) it begins to automatically upload your images to iCloud, and then streams them back to your other devices. It works pretty well, definitely a great feature of iCloud.
On the Mac, it saves all these inbound Photo Stream files at ~/Library/Application Support/iLifeAssetManagement/assets/sub/
Like many (I assume), I enable Photo Stream in iPhoto to import the latest pictures from my stream into my photo library.
Unfortunately, from what I've seen, there's no garbage collection on the raw Photo Stream files, so I've got multiple copies of the same photos dating back to last year when iCloud went live (and it's taking up plenty of storage on my increasingly cramped SSD).
So my question is: is it safe to delete the many GBs of photos at ~/Library/Application Support/iLifeAssetManagement/assets/sub/ if they're all safely in iPhoto?
And is there anything that will do this automatically after iPhoto imports (which is kind of what I'd expect to happen anyway)?
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Is it safe to delete iCloud Photo Stream files from your Mac?
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Doing a little further investigation (and experimentation), it appears to be safe to do -- but there's an easier way to clear old Photo Stream files than traversing folders and manually deleting.
On Mac, simply disable Photo Stream in Lion's iCloud settings:
If you re-enable iCloud, it will start downloading all your recent (last 30 days or last 1000) photos from scratch, but at least you won't have an excess of old, already-imported photos.
tl;dr It might be a good idea to clear / reset your Photo Stream on your computer every once in a while if you're tight on space. See instructions above.
More in this Apple support doc on Photo Stream: support.apple.com/kb/HT4486
"How many Photo Stream photos are stored on my devices and computers?
Since your Mac and PC have more storage than your iOS devices, they automatically download and keep every photo from your Photo Stream by default." (Not that we didn't already know this.)
"Is there a way to reset my Photo Stream?
Yes. ... To remove the photos from your devices, follow these instructions:
On your Mac, go to iPhoto or Aperture preferences, and turn off Photo Stream. This will delete all the photos from the Photo Stream view. If you had Automatic Import enabled in Photo Stream settings, your photos were also imported to your iPhoto or Aperture Library and will remain after you disable Photo Stream. If you want to delete any of these photos from your Library, you can do so manually at any time.
On your PC, you can remove Photo Stream photos by deleting them from your designated Photo Stream download folder. By default, this folder is located at C:\Users\\Pictures\Photo Stream\My Photo Stream."
On Mac, simply disable Photo Stream in Lion's iCloud settings:
- System Preferences
- iCloud
- Uncheck Photo Stream
- Done!
If you re-enable iCloud, it will start downloading all your recent (last 30 days or last 1000) photos from scratch, but at least you won't have an excess of old, already-imported photos.
tl;dr It might be a good idea to clear / reset your Photo Stream on your computer every once in a while if you're tight on space. See instructions above.
More in this Apple support doc on Photo Stream: support.apple.com/kb/HT4486
"How many Photo Stream photos are stored on my devices and computers?
Since your Mac and PC have more storage than your iOS devices, they automatically download and keep every photo from your Photo Stream by default." (Not that we didn't already know this.)
"Is there a way to reset my Photo Stream?
Yes. ... To remove the photos from your devices, follow these instructions:
On your Mac, go to iPhoto or Aperture preferences, and turn off Photo Stream. This will delete all the photos from the Photo Stream view. If you had Automatic Import enabled in Photo Stream settings, your photos were also imported to your iPhoto or Aperture Library and will remain after you disable Photo Stream. If you want to delete any of these photos from your Library, you can do so manually at any time.
On your PC, you can remove Photo Stream photos by deleting them from your designated Photo Stream download folder. By default, this folder is located at C:\Users\\Pictures\Photo Stream\My Photo Stream."
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My Photo Stream on my PC has been broken ever since it came out. It worked fine at first, but then it always crashes or uses 1GB of RAM without downloading the last 30days or 1000 photos, it gets up to 10 photos and stops.
if using iPhoto, it imports photos from the Photo Stream automatically afaik.
if using iPhoto, it imports photos from the Photo Stream automatically afaik.
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After iPhoto imports photos from your Photostream in your iPhoto Library, which happens automatically, you can delete all the photos from your Photostream you want without losing your photos. I do this periodically to clean up what is in my Photostream as I don't want/need all these photos to be backed up in iPhoto and available through Photostream.
You should be able to delete without issue by doing so through iPhoto and not having to actually go into the file system. That is, if I'm understanding your question correctly.
You should be able to delete without issue by doing so through iPhoto and not having to actually go into the file system. That is, if I'm understanding your question correctly.
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I've had this question as well. Apple seems to not want people to think about iCloud and is vague about the service, just let the devices do the thinking. great, but there is local storage to consider, as you& i've run into. At the time i first hit my drive's max capacity I couldn't find the answer so I turned off photo stream & just upload my iphone's photos using google+ now
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Great topic! Trying to resolve the same issue now.
By "they're all safely in iPhoto," do you mean they're on that "iPhoto Library" package? I'm trying to move that package to an external drive out from my SSD so it's best to make sure it's there.
By "they're all safely in iPhoto," do you mean they're on that "iPhoto Library" package? I'm trying to move that package to an external drive out from my SSD so it's best to make sure it's there.
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poirno pics should del., themselves,lol
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