iPhone 11 Camera roll clear out

[Jookey-pookey]

Hello all.
I’ve just upgraded to an iPhone 11. I’ve used iPhones for a while now and my camera roll/cloud has thousands and thousands of photos.
Before I start transferring everything is there anyway I can lock photos and videos on the cloud to just stay in the cloud and not transfer to the handset. I’d love to start a fresh camera roll but keep my old ones safely backed up.
Thanks.

 

[now i see it]

Not using an Apple service. You can do it using a Google service. Copy your archive over to Google Photos.

 

[ApfelKuchen]

Hello all.
I’ve just upgraded to an iPhone 11. I’ve used iPhones for a while now and my camera roll/cloud has thousands and thousands of photos.
Before I start transferring everything is there anyway I can lock photos and videos on the cloud to just stay in the cloud and not transfer to the handset. I’d love to start a fresh camera roll but keep my old ones safely backed up.
Thanks.

If you use the iCloud Photos "Optimize Storage" option you will have what you seek (Settings > [name] > iCloud > Photos: Optimize Storage). With this settings, when setting up a new phone/restoring from backup, the full quality versions of the images will remain in the cloud until you click an image to view it full-size. You'll still see the full catalog of images in the Photos app, but only the thumbnail-sized images will be stored on the phone (again, until you tap a thumbnail to download).

 

[Jookey-pookey]

Not using an Apple service. You can do it using a Google service. Copy your archive over to Google Photos.

If you use the iCloud Photos "Optimize Storage" option you will have what you seek (Settings > [name] > iCloud > Photos: Optimize Storage). With this settings, when setting up a new phone/restoring from backup, the full quality versions of the images will remain in the cloud until you click an image to view it full-size. You'll still see the full catalog of images in the Photos app, but only the thumbnail-sized images will be stored on the phone (again, until you tap a thumbnail to download).

Thank you both for your replies and suggestions. I’m going to try the google photos option - I see they also offer lots of storage for free!