Apple has notified users that its free cloud-based photo sync service, My Photo Stream (“My photostream”), launched in 2011 alongside the iCloud cloud service, is discontinued. The company, which has determined the official closing date of My Photo Stream as July 26, warned that the feature of uploading new photos to the cloud album will be blocked a month ago.

“All photos uploaded to the service prior to this date will remain in iCloud for 30 days from the upload date and will be available on all of your currently My Photo Stream-enabled devices.” There will be no photos left in iCloud until July 26, 2023 and the service will be shut down.” Apple informed its users.

The company offered users to download only photos stored in the cloud from My Photo Stream to their device and recommended using the iCloud Photos service – “the best way Keep your photos and videos up to date on all your devices and store them securely in iCloud.”

As The Verge notes, while the My Photo Stream service is free, it has many limitations, including the number of photos you can upload and the time they can only be stored on Apple servers for 30 days.

Additionally, as noted by 9to5Mac, high-quality photos were not synced by this service at their native resolution. Conversely, iCloud Photos lets you store photos and videos in the same resolution as the source, although the free storage is limited to only five gigabytes.