I backed up and reset my phone before traveling, and then synced all my travel photos and videos to iCloud. When I returned home, I restored my backup. I haven’t synced since then, so I have a ton of pre- and post-travel photos and videos I want to back up, as I’m running out of iPhone storage.
How can I sync my iPhone now without erasing my iCloud gallery? Have I fumbled?
"Backed up" and "synced" mean different things-- can you tell us what you actually did? Start here:
Backup does not change what's at iCloud Photos. If you have iCloud Photos turned on, "Backup" does not backup pictures, but it doesn't take any away.
If storage is short on our iPhone, then it might be dangerous to try to add more stuff-- you could lose stuff.
"Backed up" and "synced" mean different things-- can you tell us what you actually did? Start here:
Backup does not change what's at iCloud Photos. If you have iCloud Photos turned on, "Backup" does not backup pictures, but it doesn't take any away.
If storage is short on our iPhone, then it might be dangerous to try to add more stuff-- you could lose stuff.
I backed up and then reset my phone to a clean slate, went traveling, synced my iPhone so that my travel photos are on iCloud, came home and restored my pre-travel backup.
my iCloud has the content from my travels, my iPhone gallery has content from before and after travels. I currently have 8gb left of iPhone storage and I know that if I press sync now, it will erase what’s in my iCloud, as those photos aren’t on my iPhone
Again, "backed up" and "synced" don't tell me what you did. They tell me what you thought happened, and I know that those words mean different things to different people. You just repeated your original post. You did answer a couple of my questions, but the other things are still murky.
My inference is that your trip pictures are at iCloud.com; different pictures are on your iPhone and, right now, your iPhone Photos is not connected to iCloud.com. Is that right?
Not being sure what you did, I will say this: you're statement, " … I know that if I press sync now, it will erase what’s in my iCloud, as those photos aren’t on my iPhone," is almost certainly not correct. If you connect an iPhone's Photos Library to iCloud, then Photos will transfer all the pictures from the iPhone to iCloud.com, and then it will transfer all the pictures from iCloud to the iPhone, doing its best to avoid duplicates. This will be just what you want if my statement in the second paragraph is correct.
I used the backup function in iTunes to create a back up of my phone in my PC, and then I reset my phone to a blank slate, traveled, uploaded the photos I took onto my gallery, and then when I came home I restored the backup on my PC created through iTunes. I don’t understand how else I can explain this. iCloud is not a back up, this is clear
right now, none of my travel photos are on my phone, they are all exclusively on my iCloud, which is currently not synced. If I enable syncing right now, will both my iPhone and iCloud galleries become merged, or will my iPhone gallery entirely replace my iCloud gallery, causing the travel photos to be erased? This is what I’m trying to understand, because this is what I am reading everywhere. When I was synced, any photo deleted from my iPhone would be deleted from the iCloud, because it is not a backup, but a sync
Yaqooo wrote: …I used the backup function in iTunes to create a back up of my phone in my PC,
Well, that's important to know, because apparently you didn't use the phone's iCloud backup feature. Since there are multiple ways to back up an iPhone, saying "I backed up and reset my phone" wasn't much information.
right now, none of my travel photos are on my phone, they are all exclusively on my iCloud, … If I enable syncing right now, will both my iPhone and iCloud galleries become merged,
This is what I had said about that:
If you connect an iPhone's Photos Library to iCloud, then Photos will transfer all the pictures from the iPhone to iCloud.com, and then it will transfer all the pictures from iCloud to the iPhone, doing its best to avoid duplicates.
iCloud doesn't remove pictures-- it merges the Libraries. The one caveat is that pictures that are transferred with a method that keeps Photos from having full control over them may have a flaky existence on the phone. You can check to see if your pictures on the phone belong fully to Photos by going into Edit mode with some of them. If Photos lets you edit your pictures, then they are in control of Photos and things will progress normally.
Syncing iPhone without erasing iCloud gallery
