Can I access iCloud photos on my PC without uploading my computer's photos?

Question

Level 1

4 points

Can I access iCloud photos on my PC without uploading my computer's photos?

I wanted to hook up iCloud on my home PC so that it'd be easy to access my iPhone photos. However, in the Photo Settings, under iCloud Photos, here's what it's asking me to turn on:

"Upload and store your PC photo library in iCloud and access photos and videos from all your devices"-- (emphasis mine)

I don't want to store my COMPUTER'S PHOTOS in iCloud, I just want to be able to access my iCloud photos ON my computer.............what am I missing here?!?! I already have OneDrive for my PC photo/data storage--isn't this asking me to upload all those same photos now to iCloud (duplicating my OneDrive storage in iCloud?)??

Can I NOT simply access my iCloud photos on my home computer without including my PC photos as well? HELP!!

Julz in AZ

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Original Title: iCloud on PC--"ON" means I upload all my PC photos to iCloud, too?!? Help me understand!

Windows, Windows 11 (26200)

Posted on Dec 17, 2025 8:48 PM

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Answer 1

AZ-Julz Author

Level 1

4 points

Dec 20, 2025 9:20 AM in response to muguy

Well, I'd already OK's the Data portion--but iCloud isn't for me!! So to SAFELY get it all out of my PC, do I need to:

Turn OFF the data sharing option.
Remove the full app from my PC.
THEN delete the iPhone data shared with my PC.

Can you just clarify these steps for me, please?

....so I understand iCloud better, it's not like my Dropbox, giving me cloud storage for the photos/data I choose to store there. iCloud acts more as a sync-er, just duplicating in my PC what I've allowed it to access on my iPhone. iCloud expands the amount I can duplicate across devices, but still does NOT act as a standalone cloud storage for my phone photos. Do I understand that correctly??

I only wanted to upload iPhone photos to Shutterfly--so instead, maybe I should just back up my iPhone photos & data into OneDrive, instead of utilizing iCloud, too. I can utilize iCloud.com if I need to get something directly from my phone (tho it doesn't seem to have much of a search option to it).

Thanks for your time and help.

Julz

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Answer 2

muguy

Level 10

91,184 points

Dec 18, 2025 1:05 AM in response to AZ-Julz

You can access at iCloud.com instead of syncing.

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