With iCloud Photos, iPhone, iPad, and Mac users can store all their photos and videos in iCloud so they’re always in sync across all devices, while backing up automatically. However, Apple also allows users to delete the original files from the device to save storage space. But how does this affect the quality of media you see in the Photos app?
Download originals or optimize storage
If you are a iCloud Photos user, two options are available in the Photos app settings: Download Originals or Optimize Storage. The first option, as the name suggests, will simply back up all your photos and videos to iCloud, but each file will also be stored locally on your device.
The advantage of choosing the original download is that you will always have a copy of all your photos and videos with you. This means that even when you don’t have a Wi-Fi or cellular connection, you can still view your entire photo library. However, enabling this option can end up filling up your device’s internal memory quite quickly.
For this reason, Apple also offers the Optimize Storage option. When enabled, the Photos app will optionally delete the local version of your photos and videos from your device to save storage space. In other words, you may need an internet connection to open your photos and videos stored in iCloud.
Your library will still be there in the Photos app, but the media will only download from iCloud when you choose to open it.
Poor quality previews in iCloud Photos
Recently, some users on Reddit raised a discussion about Apple Photos app showing low quality previews for media stored in iCloud Photos. While not exactly a new “feature”, it looks like Apple has indeed further reduced the resolution of previews (especially for videos) when you don’t have local files uploaded to your device.
In the past, the Photos app downloaded the original image or video from iCloud when that media was not available locally. But since we now have things like 4K ProRes videos or ProRAW images which result in very large files, iCloud shows users a lower resolution version of that media.
This has positives and negatives. The good part is that these lower resolution previews download faster than the original files, which is important when you don’t have a fast internet connection. But the downside is that the quality is significantly lower than the original media.
If you really want to get the original media of a photo or video stored in iCloud, there are several things you can do. The first and most obvious is to switch to the Download Originals option. But this, of course, requires your device to have enough free space on internal storage as it will download your entire library.
But if you just want the original version of a specific piece of media, there’s a simple trick to force the app to download it instead of the low-res preview. Just tap or click the Edit button, then the app will download the full resolution media from iCloud. After that, you can exit edit mode and the original media will still be there for a while.
When it comes to photos, sometimes zooming in on images is enough to force the Photos app to download the original media, so you can see all the details. But keep in mind that this is a temporary solution and the original media will be removed from the device after some time.
And if you’re on a Mac, you can also export the original media by clicking the File menu and then Export > Export Unmodified Original. This option will also ignore any edits and filters you have applied to that photo or video.
You can check out the difference between a lower resolution preview and the original media in the screenshots below (click on the images to enlarge):
Feature request
Personally, I think Apple should add an option for users to choose whether they want to always view iCloud Photos media at full resolution. More than that, I would also like the Photos app to allow users to keep or delete specific media from local storage.
How do you think Apple can improve the iCloud Photos experience? Let us know in the comments section below.
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