How To: Keep all your private photos off iCloud

[Anonymous]

After a week of nervous female celebrities, FBI investigations and DMCA takedowns, the finger of blame has firmly been pointed at iCloud as the source for many of the leaked celebrity pictures (although this could happen with any Cloud storage service). 

If you'd prefer not to have any of your photos from your iPhone or iPad on iCloud, here is how to do it:

1. Disable Photo Stream

iCloud can back up your last 1,000 photos, Thats pictures you have taken on any of your iDevices that has Photo Stream enabled.

1. Launch the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad
2. Tap on iCloud
3. Tap on Photos
4. Under the Photos Section, turn off My Photo Stream

2. Turn off iCloud Camera Roll backups

Many of the leaked photos came from photos recovered from iCloud backups which contained the Camera Roll. If you do this, ensure you periodically save your photos to your home PC, laptop or Mac or you may lose them if you break your iPhone or iPad.

1. Launch the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad
2. Tap on iCloud
3. Tap on Storage & Backup at the very bottom
4. Tap on Manage Storage
5. Tap on your current device under Backups
6. Under Backup Options, turn Off the option for Camera Roll
7. Tap on Turn off & Delete to confirm.

3. Sync to iTunes instead

If you really want to make sure that iCloud doesn't have any information you don't want it to, don't use it! So long as you have a PC, laptop or Mac you can install iTunes on, you can sync all of your information to that instead. Just ensure you do this regularly.

[jonsie]

Some useful information @Anonymous 

[aldaweb]

Great post @Anonymous , pity you can't get kudos in off-topic 

[Anonymous]

Thank you for sharing.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for sharing PapaDug

[aldaweb]

This should be added to the list of help topics.

[jonsie]

I agree. Can you add @Toby  or @MI5 ?

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

After a week of nervous female celebrities, FBI investigations and DMCA takedowns, the finger of blame has firmly been pointed at iCloud as the source for many of the leaked celebrity pictures (although this could happen with any Cloud storage service). 

If you'd prefer not to have any of your photos from your iPhone or iPad on iCloud, here is how to do it:

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An easier solution is to use a proper, single purpose camera for taking photos.  You can then decide at your leisure what you want to upload for your own private use and what you want to broadcast.  

Gerry

[Anonymous]

This is very true, Gerry, and 100% sure-fire guaranteed way to prevent any pictures you don't want on the internet from being stored there.

However I think over recent years that more people take pictures with their mobiles than they do with digital cameras, and so more guidance is needed on how to protect their data.

[jonsie]

It seems that using a normal camera detracts from the fun of an evening out with friends or family get togethers fwith everyone flashing their phones for the inevitable selfies and capturing those off-guarded moments. Whatever did we do before these cringing snapshots