When your shared album photos appear greyed out with a cloud icon, it usually means your photos are stored in iCloud but can't fully load onto your phone. This typically happens when your iCloud storage is full, especially on the free 5GB plan. Because the photos aren’t fully downloaded onto your device, they won’t open properly.
The safest way to get your photos back is to download them directly from iCloud using a computer. Simply go to the iCloud website (icloud.com) and sign in with your Apple ID. Once logged in, click the Photos app, open your shared albums, and select the photos you want to save. You can then download these photos directly to your computer and safely store them there. Later, you can move these files to an external hard drive or another cloud service like Google Photos or Dropbox.
If you prefer to fix this directly from your phone, another simple option is to temporarily upgrade your iCloud storage. You can easily do this from your iPhone’s settings by tapping your name, selecting iCloud, then tapping "Manage Account Storage" and choosing a higher storage plan, such as 50GB for around $0.99 a month.
Upgrading temporarily provides enough storage for your phone to sync and fully download the greyed-out photos. After your photos are safely downloaded onto your device, you can move them to another location and then downgrade back to the free storage if you prefer.
Just make sure not to erase or reset your phone, as that might permanently delete your photos. Also, avoid deleting photos or data on your phone or from your iCloud until you have securely downloaded your images to another safe location.
After safely recovering your pictures, it’s a good idea to keep an extra backup. You could save copies onto your computer, an external hard drive, or use another cloud storage option such as Google Photos or Dropbox. This ensures your important photos remain safe and easily accessible in the future.
