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VSCO discontinues popular sync feature, tells users to back up files

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Users of the photo platform VSCO can no longer sync their images across multiple devices. The app’s sync feature was officially discontinued over the weekend.

For those who are unfamiliar, VSCO is a popular photo-editing app with a social community for users to share their shots. The platform is rated as an editor’s pick in the iOS App Store.

While VSCO didn’t give a reason for ending the feature, the company released a help forum topic detailing the change, effective from Aug. 12.

The company says that synced images will not be deleted, but users that delete the app or transfer the app to a new device will lose their synced images. Because of that, VSCO recommends that users back up their images.

The sync feature allowed users with multiple devices to easily transfer shots between them, but many of the app’s fans also used the sync as a method for backing up images or freeing up space. The feature also allowed works-in-progress to sync, saving edits across multiple devices before the project is fully completed. The sync feature was introduced with version 4.0 for iOS and 3.0 for Android.

VSCO says the web-uploaded service, which allows users to upload photos, then download them to another device, will still be available. But with a time limit of 48 hours for the web uploads, the feature isn’t a back-up solution.

The app also recently added a feature that allows users to export their entire library, provided they still have space on the device. After exporting, users can backup those images by saving them to a computer. And iOS users can backup without exporting by using iTunes to copy the VSCO image library onto a computer.

While the sync feature has already been discontinued, users have until December 31 to finish any open projects that use synced images. The sync option is no longer available for new projects.

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