Even if you’re not a big fan of mobile photography, you probably have at least a few thousand photos and videos on your iPhone that clog free space. Regardless of what memory your smartphone has, it’s a shame to lose even 7-10, or even all 20 GB. I’m not talking about photos taken in RAW format , whose weight is significantly larger than shots in automatic mode. Therefore, do not waste precious disk space. Moreover, it is possible to completely legally – and, most importantly, free of charge – release it in a matter of minutes and not lose a single byte of data.
Today we are talking about the Shared Albums feature in iOS, which by default is intended to be shared with close photos that have them. However, not everyone knows that Apple allows such albums to be used as conditionally unlimited storage. Now let’s figure out what’s what.
Shared Albums on iPhone – Settings
Shared Albums itself is based on iCloud. That is, the pictures that are stored there are uploaded to the cloud. Otherwise, how would Apple allow them to be shared with other users? But for us, this is only a plus, because the regular iCloud storage does not consume Shared Albums , which will allow many not to switch to a paid plan.
How to set up Shared Albums on iPhone :
- Launch the stock Photos app on your iPhone;
- Go to the “Albums” tab and select “Shared Albums”;
- Click on the plus sign in the upper left corner to create a new album;
- Name it, and at the stage of adding other users, just click “Next”, without entering anything;
- Then click on the three dots in the upper right corner – “Add photo”;
- Select the photos you want to upload to the Shared Album and click Done.
Now you just have to wait for the download to finish, and all your photos will be in the Shared album . After that, the originals can be safely deleted. However, keep in mind that after being transferred to the cloud, images are compressed to about 3 megapixels, as are videos, the resolution of which is reduced. In this case, Apple follows the Google model, which also compresses the photos when they upload them to Google Photos .
You probably won’t like the fact that the photos you add to the Shared Album have to be selected one at a time. This is done because, by default, you are not supposed to share all your photos with other users. Therefore, it is not possible to select them all at once. But there is one trick that will allow you not to poke at each picture individually.
Shared Albums – Unable to share
It consists in selecting one picture, and then putting your finger on the next one and, without lifting it from the screen, pull it up. All photos and videos will be highlighted much faster and automatically without requiring individual clicks. True, keep in mind that in some cases some problems may arise, due to which it will not be possible to transfer all the pictures at once. In this case, it is better to simply divide them into several batches of 300-500 pieces.
Shared albums are not unlimited. Apple allows you to upload up to 5,000 photos, videos, and animations. However, there are no restrictions on weight, with the exception of gifs – they must be no more than 100 MB. But the pictures can weigh as much as you like, however, provided that they are made in one of the formats supported by Apple:
- HEIF
- JPEG
- RAW
- PNG
- gif
- TIFF
In addition, some special formats are also supported. For example, Live Photos , time lapses, slow motion videos, Memories videos and panoramas. The same restrictions apply to videos, with the exception that each video should be no more than 15 minutes long. Otherwise, you won’t be able to download it. Keep this in mind when you want to upload a movie or series to an album.
Well, and, perhaps, the main limitation of the Shared Album is the need to use the Internet to access its contents. This was probably understandable as well, since the albums use iCloud as a base, but I think it is necessary to explain this separately. However, I do not think that this will be a big problem, given that today the Internet is everywhere and for everyone.
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