Apple has sneakily made changes to the shared iCloud Photos album in the name of an ‘upgrade,’ which could be worse than you think!

If you have used Shared Albums in the past, you know that an album can have up to 5000 photos and videos, and most importantly, they don’t count towards your own iCloud storage limit (which may be 5 GB or whatever iCloud+ or Apple One plan you have subscribed to).

This fact is also prominently displayed on Apple’s website, as evidenced by the screenshot below.

But all this is about to change in the name of ‘upgrade.’

Backstory…

I have been using shared iCloud albums since 2014, and I still have the albums I created in the erstwhile iPhoto app on my MacBook Pro.

As mentioned, photos saved in these old shared albums still appear on all my devices decades later and don’t count toward my iCloud storage.

After installing iOS 27 developer beta on my iPhone, I went to the Shared Albums section of the Photos app, and I noticed a couple of things I don’t like.

Upgrade Shared Album: This is a trick to lose free storage!

This option seems positive and something you will be enticed to activate for your existing shared album; after all, who doesn’t like an upgrade!

But there is a catch.

If you start editing your existing/old shared album and tap the ‘Upgrade Shared Album,’ a screen tells you the benefits in big words that you will now be able to share full-resolution photos and videos, or share the invitation using other apps like WhatsApp. All this sounds great.

But down in a small text, it also says that “the owner of the shared album will provide iCloud storage for any new items added to this shared album.”

This means shared albums are no longer free as far as cloud storage is concerned. Instead, it will count towards your iCloud storage, which is a massive downgrade. If it didn’t count towards the original album creator’s iCloud space, there would have been no need to put this disclaimer!

In other words, no more free storage to share photos long term without eating up your iCloud space!

And remember, Apple already does things like enabling iCloud Photos and iPhone backups by default, so you quickly fill your iCloud storage and then pay them a monthly fee to keep using iCloud (more on it in 19 things I dislike about Apple). If you don’t pay or free up space, features like iCloud Notes won’t sync across devices, and you won’t even be able to send or receive emails on your iCloud Mail account.

Share Albums now need iCloud Photos to be turned on

Since I won’t ‘upgrade‘ (read downgrade for me) my existing shared iCloud albums until Apple forces me, I thought of creating a new one in the Photos app on my iPhone running iOS 27.

Like the good old days, I didn’t want to nuke this shared album after 30 days, so I tried turning off the “Make Album Temporary” switch, but it nudged me to activate iCloud Photos, which again makes it clear that if you want to create long-term shared albums, you’ll have to allocate space for it in your existing iCloud storage. No more free cloud storage!

Back in the day, you could create new shared albums without having to activate iCloud Photos.

Of course, Apple is still generous enough to let you create a shared album for free for 30 days without requiring you to activate iCloud Photos and without consuming your iCloud storage (similarly, it offers unlimited iCloud storage for creating a full device backup, so you can upgrade to a new iPhone). But remember to ask your friends and family, with whom you have shared the album, to save the photos to their devices within 30 days, or else they will be deleted.

I don’t use iCloud Photos on my devices (I have my reasons, which I will share in another post), so I can’t create permanent shared iCloud albums anymore, as I have been able to do for more than a decade.

Apple, please stop messing up things we love…

Apple is doing very well financially. Customers consistently rate them very highly on satisfaction surveys. Still, the company does everything it can to squeeze as much as possible from its users. Changes to old features like this one feel unnecessary and ultimately make the experience more frustrating for loyal consumers.

What do you think about this new change?

Also, check out:

• How to change the Liquid Glass level in iOS 27 & macOS 27
• How to install macOS 27 Golden Gate on another partition

Source link: https://www.idownloadblog.com/2026/06/23/shared-icloud-album-consume-icloud-space/

Learn how to check the indexing progress of your iPhone or iPad, including the exact percentage completed, using the Apple Console app on Mac.

Once you update your iPhone or iPad to iOS 27 and iPadOS 27, you’ll see an “Indexing in Progress” banner at the top of the Settings app.

Back in the day, iPhone and iPad indexed data in the background, and you didn’t know it was doing that.

But iOS 27 has completely changed how it indexes your content so Siri and Apple Intelligence can do things with your files that weren’t possible before (like asking Siri to precisely find old texts with specific content — e.g., go through my messages with my wife and tell me which water bottle she asked me to buy).

This new indexing process goes super deep and can take days or even a few weeks. I assume this is why, and to tell people about the new indexing and smart AI features that come with it, Apple may have decided to show a banner in the Settings app.

Unfortunately, this banner doesn’t show a progress/completion bar (which is similar to how Apple doesn’t reveal how much of your voice cloning is complete when you use the Personal Voice accessibility feature).

Still, if you have a Mac, there is a way to see exactly how far your iPhone or iPad is in indexing your user content (thanks to 9to5Mac for this tip).

See the current iPhone indexing status in iOS 27

1) Connect your iPhone or iPad to your Mac using a USB cable.

2) Open the built-in Apple Console app on your Mac by searching for it in macOS Spotlight or going to Finder > Applications > Utilities folder.

3) Click the Action menu for the Console app and then click Include Debug Messages so it’s activated (you’ll see a checkmark).

4) Select your iPhone or iPad in the Console app sidebar.

5) Type spotlight indexing progress in the search bar at the top right corner of the Console app and press the return / enter key.

6) Click Start Streaming if you see it on the screen. Or, click the start triangle button at the top as shown in the screenshot below. Or, click Action > Start Streaming from the top menu bar.

7) Important: Open the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad and wait.

8) You should now see the indexing progress with a percentage next to ‘PipelineCompleteness‘ in the Console app. Since my iPhone’s indexing is complete, it shows 100%.

Many people had their indexing get stuck at 95%, but leaving your device charging overnight for a few days should complete it.

Also, check out:

• How to get the new Siri AI on iPhone, iPad, and Mac
• How to change the Liquid Glass level in iOS 27 & macOS 27

Source link: https://www.idownloadblog.com/2026/06/22/indexing-in-progress-level/