The only application I have on my Mac that works with PhotoStream is iPhoto. I'm wondering if my Mac grabs the images from PhotoStream constantly or if it only downloads them when I launch an application that uses PhotoStream (such as iPhoto).
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I did some research yesterday to find a way to easily get to them as well apple.stackexchange.com/questions/45316/…– jmlumpkinMar 23, 2012 at 21:33
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2 Answers
Yes! A process called PhotoStreamAgent runs at login, and idles in the background, downloading new photos when they're uploaded to your Photo Stream.
There exist both /Applications/Aperture.app/Contents/Library/LoginItems/PhotoStreamAgent.app and /Applications/iPhoto.app/Contents/Library/LoginItems/PhotoStreamAgent.app, indicating that this background-downloading behavior works no matter which application you use to manage your photo library.
(And as Asmus points out, photos are stored in ~/Library/Application Support/iLifeAssetManagement/assets)
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2This is also why iCloud in System Preferences also requires you to have one of the two installed, instead of it being installed in /System/Library/ or the like. Mar 23, 2012 at 21:53
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That's good to know, but I assume that
~/Library/Application Support/iLifeAssetManagement/assetsonly stores the Photo Stream photos (as opposed to photos contained in your iPhoto library) - which are limited to the most recent 1000. Say you don't startiPhotofor a long time, and you've snapped more than 1000 photos in the meantime: would you then miss out on some of the photos? Or do the agents perform ongoing imports from that location? Oct 4, 2013 at 23:53
The photos are "constantly" downloaded to your Mac, and stored in subfolders within ~/Library/Application\ Support/iLifeAssetManagement/assets/sub.
