How to Enable iCloud Photos on Different Devices
iCloud Photos is not only for iPhone but also for other Apple devices like iPad, Mac, Apple TV, and Windows PC. Besides, it can also be accessed on iCloud.com. This post is going to show the specific steps for enabling iCloud Photos on these devices.
How to Enable iCloud Photos on iPhone, iPad, or Apple Vision Pro
Step 1. Go to Settings on your device.
Step 2. Click on your profile name and choose iCloud.
Step 3. Select Photos in the list and switch on the button next to Sync this [device].
How to Enable iCloud Photos on Mac
Step 1. Go to the Photos app on your Mac.
Step 2. Choose Photos and then Settings.
Step 3. Select the iCloud tab and check the box next to iCloud Photos.
How to Enable iCloud Photos on Apple TV
Step 1. Open Settings on your Apple TV.
Step 2. Choose Users and Accounts and then your account.
Step 3. Select iCloud and turn on iCloud Photos.
How to Enable iCloud Photos on Windows PC
Step 1. Download and install iCloud for Windows.
Step 2. Open iCloud for Windows and sign in to your Apple ID.
Step 3. Check the box next to Photos and click the Apply button.
How to Use iCloud Photos on iCloud.com
Step 1. Go to iCloud.com on a web browser and sign in to your account.
Step 2. Choose the Photos icon and access the photos.
Why Can’t I Enable iCloud Photos?
If you follow the above steps on your device but find yourself unable to turn on iCloud Photos, you can refer to the probable reasons and solutions here.
- Inadequate iCloud Storage: Make sure you have enough storage in iCloud. When you run out of storage, you will need to buy more storage or create new space, or you may not be able to turn on iCloud Photos on your device.
- Outdated iOS/macOS Version: Make sure your device has the latest version of iOS or macOS installed. Updates can fix bugs that lead to the failure of enabling iCloud Photos.
- Apple ID Issues: Make sure you are signed in with the correct Apple ID and have iCloud Photos turned on.
- Network Connectivity: If your Internet connection is unstable, iCloud Photos might not work. Make sure you are connected to Wi-Fi and try again.
- Device Restrictions: If you use every device connected to your Apple ID, you might need to remove it to enable iCloud Photos.
If you have tried everything and it still does not work, you can consider contacting Apple Support.
What Happens When I Turn iCloud Photos Off?
After enabling iCloud Photos, if you no longer need it, you may want to turn it off. There are some results if you turn off iCloud Photos on your device.
- Videos and Photos Not Sync: Edits you make to images or videos on one device will not show on the other device.
- Storage Space is Freed: If you use Optimize iPhone Storage to store the original quality of photos and videos on iCloud, when you turn off iCloud Photos, the storage will be freed up.
- Original Photos and Videos are still Available: If you have downloaded the original photos and video from iCloud Photos to your device, they will be still on your device even if you turn off iCloud Photos.
- Photos and Videos on iCloud will be Deleted: After 30 days of disabling iCloud Photos, any photos or videos that have not yet been downloaded to your device will be deleted from iCloud.
As you can see, disabling iCloud Photos will cause some inconvenience. Therefore, you can do some preparations before disabling it.
- Download Original Photos and Videos: Make sure you have downloaded the original photos and videos to your device if you want to keep them.
- Consider Other Backup Options: Move your photos and videos from iCloud Photos to an external hard drive or a computer, or use another cloud storage service to sync them between your devices.
Bonus Tip: How to Manage iCloud Photos and Other Clouds Together
If you also use other cloud storage services except for iCloud Photos, such as Google Photos, Flickr, Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, etc., you can use MultCloud to manage them together on one platform instead of opening different websites. Besides, MultCloud offers robust functions to move photos from iCloud Photos to these clouds.

- Cloud Transfer: Directly transfer photos from iCloud Photos to Google Photos, Google Drive, or other clouds without downloading and uploading.
- Cloud Sync: Real-time sync iCloud Photos with another cloud to update modified or new-added photos on another cloud immediately.
- Cloud Backup: Backup photos from iCloud Photos to another cloud with the file versioning feature, helping choose the best version to restore.
To use MultCloud to manage multiple cloud drives together, first, you need to sign up for a free MultCloud account.
Then, you can add your clouds to MultCloud by clicking Add Cloud and the cloud icon. After adding the clouds, you can directly access your files on the website. Besides, you can also share, download, copy, cut, delete, and rename the files on it.
If you want to move photos from iCloud Photos to another cloud, you can choose a preferred function in the left sidebar. Just select the transfer source and target, and then you can create an automatic task.
Conclusion
This post tells you how to enable iCloud Photos on iPhone, iPad, Apple Vision Pro, Mac, Apple TV, and Windows PC. Moreover, it gives some solutions for the iCloud Photos unabling issue. You can try the solutions one by one to see which one is yours. What’s more, if you think iCloud Photos is useless and you want to disable it, you can refer to the results above and think twice.
For the bonus tip, the post introduces MultCloud to you for managing iCloud Photos and other cloud storage together. You can also use this cloud management service to move files between clouds effortlessly.
MultCloud Supports Clouds
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Google Drive
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Google Workspace
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OneDrive
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OneDrive for Business
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SharePoint
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Dropbox
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Dropbox Business
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MEGA
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Google Photos
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iCloud Photos
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FTP
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box
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box for Business
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pCloud
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Baidu
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Flickr
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HiDrive
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Yandex
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NAS
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WebDAV
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MediaFire
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iCloud Drive
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WEB.DE
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Evernote
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Amazon S3
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Wasabi
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ownCloud
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MySQL
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Egnyte
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Putio
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ADrive
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SugarSync
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Backblaze
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CloudMe
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MyDrive
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Cubby