iPhone 13 Pro How to delete photos off iPhone without deleting them from iCloud?

[iHavequestions]

I actually see from searching how to do this - which is to turn off iCloud Photos in the settings. But the question I have not been able to find the answer to is, once I delete the photos with this setting turned off, it will delete them on the iPhone -but will if I turn it back on, will it sync with iCloud and also delete it off iCloud at that point?

If the answer to the question is that it will not delete it off iCloud, only iPhone and I can still see the photos in my Photos app, how do I distinguish on my phone what's on iCloud vs what's actually stored on my phone?

Thanks for your help. This topic has confused me for a while now. Just wanted to get full clarity.

 

[rui no onna]

Never tried it but I'm pretty sure re-enabling iCloud Photos will either delete the pic from iCloud or resync the pic from iCloud to your phone.

iCloud Photos is meant to be a full mirror/sync service. If you want selective syncing, you'll need to use another service.

 

[CR45H 0V3RR1D3]

Yeah, you just confused the sh*t outta me as well, lol. If it works anything like google photos, you can delete them from your device once they are synced to your cloud. If you delete before and you have the sync option on, it will delete them from the cloud as well. It almost sounds like you're saying that Apple won't let you do that. Hopefully I am misunderstanding as well

 

[iHavequestions]

Never tried it but I'm pretty sure re-enabling iCloud Photos will either delete the pic from iCloud or resync the pic from iCloud to your phone.

iCloud Photos is meant to be a full mirror/sync service. If you want selective syncing, you'll need to use another service.

Yeah, I imagine the same but wanted to get a clear and certain answer. Anyone can confirm?

 

[chabig]

How to delete photos off iPhone without deleting them from iCloud?​

Think of iCloud photos like iCloud email. All of your devices always stay in sync. What you do on any device is reflected on all the others. Knowing that, just forget about deleting photos on the phone. Get used to having your entire library available to you all the time, everywhere. Use albums to simplify organization is you need to find specific pictures quickly.

 

[iHavequestions]

Yeah, you just confused the sh*t outta me as well, lol. If it works anything like google photos, you can delete them from your device once they are synced to your cloud. If you delete before and you have the sync option on, it will delete them from the cloud as well. It almost sounds like you're saying that Apple won't let you do that. Hopefully I am misunderstanding as well

My question is if you delete it with the sync option OFF, then once you deleted the photos on your device and when you turn the sync back on, what happens to those photos. you deleted off your device on iCloud? Does iCloud keep them or delete them once sync is re-enabled? If it it does delete off of iCloud, then it makes me think that this is a stupid feature because I would want to keep photos in the cloud and not take up space on my hardware and there wouldn't be an easy way to do that in this case without keeping photo syncing completely off forever (which stops backing up photos from my phone into the cloud from that point on).

 

[iHavequestions]

Think of iCloud photos like iCloud email. All of your devices always stay in sync. What you do on any device is reflected on all the others. Knowing that, just forget about deleting photos on the phone. Get used to having your entire library available to you all the time, everywhere. Use albums to simplify organization is you need to find specific pictures quickly.

OK. So then there's no way to free up hardware space of old photos on my iPhone while having iCloud retain those old photos and having space being taken up by cloud storage while syncing to new ones between the device and iCloud, am I right?

 

[now i see it]

Use another iPhone as a test mule. Set up a new Apple ID and test it for yourself with a couple images. Then report back here.

What you’re imagining doing - people don’t do. It’s mostly a hypothetical question. Test it for yourself then let us know.

 

[chabig]

So then there's no way to free up hardware space of old photos on my iPhone while having iCloud retain those old photos and having space being taken up by cloud storage while syncing to new ones between the device and iCloud, am I right?

No. You're not right. Turn on "Optimize iPhone Storage in Photos settings. Very little data will remain on your iPhone.

Manage your photo and video storage - Apple Support

Learn about photo storage and saving space with iCloud.

support.apple.com

 

[iHavequestions]

Use another iPhone as a test mule. Set up a new Apple ID and test it for yourself with a couple images. Then report back here.

What you’re imagining doing - people don’t do. It’s mostly a hypothetical question. Test it for yourself then let us know.

I dont have the luxury of multiple phones.
Why would it be a hypothetical question? This is the use case:

Customer has a phone with 256GB of internal hardware storage filled up with years of photos. Customer is considering upgrading iCloud to 2TB so the photos can be offloaded to the cloud and the phone can continue to take new photos and the old photos can be deleted on device while still being stored on iCloud.

Seems like this could affect a lot of people?

 

[CR45H 0V3RR1D3]

Use another iPhone as a test mule. Set up a new Apple ID and test it for yourself with a couple images. Then report back here.

What you’re imagining doing - people don’t do. It’s mostly a hypothetical question. Test it for yourself then let us know.

I'm still not even sure wtf he's trying to do, lol. If sync is off, then nothing that is on your device should ever make it to the cloud. So, turning that option on, shouldn't magically make a bunch of pictures appear. On the other side of that coin, it makes quite a bit of sense to sync with the cloud, then once they're there, you should be allowed to free up the space on your device. Doesn't make a lot of sense to have them in the cloud if you have to keep them on your device as well. Just as easy to open the photos app, which I assume is tied to the cloud, and just grab them from there when you need them. At least, that's how it works with Google, it seems kind of nuts to think that Apple doesn't do this as well. Again, I am hoping I am wrong, but that's a major turnoff if it's true.

 

[iHavequestions]

No. You're not right. Turn on "Optimize iPhone Storage in Photos settings. Very little data will remain on your iPhone.

Manage your photo and video storage - Apple Support

Learn about photo storage and saving space with iCloud.

support.apple.com

The "Optimize iPhone Storage" option is a good solution, except that you cannot select which photos you want to optimize and which ones you do not. This is important because I want certain photos to be accessible even if I have no internet connection but the ones I don't look at often, I can put in the cloud and right now it's all or nothing.

 

[CR45H 0V3RR1D3]

I dont have the luxury of multiple phones.
Why would it be a hypothetical question? This is the use case:

Customer has a phone with 256GB of internal hardware storage filled up with years of photos. Customer is considering upgrading iCloud to 2TB so the photos can be offloaded to the cloud and the phone can continue to take new photos and the old photos can be deleted on device while still being stored on iCloud.

Seems like this could affect a lot of people?

Okay, so you were actually saying what I was thinking. Yeah, that seems kind of retarded, for Apple to require you to keep every photo on your device if you want it constantly synced with the cloud as well.

 

[chabig]

This is important because I want certain photos to be accessible even if I have no internet connection...

Have your customer try iCloud photos. I don't think they will notice any difference other than that their photos will use drastically less storage.

 

[Slartibart]

If you want to keep a collection of photos independent from sync, do the following(iOS/iPadOS 15):

Activate iCloud Drive under Apple ID -> iCloud.

Open Apple Photos. Select the pictures you want to add a permanent collection. Click on the Share-symbol and choose Save to Files from the popup-menu. Select iCloud Drive, add any required folder/subfolder using the symbol left to Save in the dialogue (a folder icon with a plus).

Save your photos and pictures to the iCloud Drive.

 

[xraydoc]

The ”Optimize” setting will automatically remove originals from your phone as more space is needed. A very small thumbnail remains on your phone so you can find what you need. If you want to keep certain ones at full resolution, make them favorites.

Don‘t delete photos manually from your phone. The phone will manage its own space when “optimized” is on. Even if your phone storage is nearly full due to photo storage, ones not viewed in a while will be automatically off-loaded when more space is needed for other things. It works — don’t micromanage.

FYI, I have 37,000 photos in my library but it’s only occupying 37GB on my iPad mini. It’s well over 400GB on iCloud and on my HD backups.

 

[Crystal21]

ones not viewed in a while will be automatically off-loaded when more space is needed

That doesn’t sound good. If they’re offloaded from the phone, that means they’re offloaded from iCloud too. And gone forever 😕

 

[Jony Mac]

Sign out if iCloud completely. Delete the photos and sign back in. That seems like an approach that would work. Since you are signed out there’s no way the cloud side would be effected.

 

[leslieg]

That doesn’t sound good. If they’re offloaded from the phone, that means they’re offloaded from iCloud too. And gone forever 😕

its offloaded from the device, not iCloud. it keeps a lower resolution version on your device, and when you click the photo to view it, it downloads the original again.

 

[leslieg]

I actually see from searching how to do this - which is to turn off iCloud Photos in the settings. But the question I have not been able to find the answer to is, once I delete the photos with this setting turned off, it will delete them on the iPhone -but will if I turn it back on, will it sync with iCloud and also delete it off iCloud at that point?

If the answer to the question is that it will not delete it off iCloud, only iPhone and I can still see the photos in my Photos app, how do I distinguish on my phone what's on iCloud vs what's actually stored on my phone?

Thanks for your help. This topic has confused me for a while now. Just wanted to get full clarity.

I would recommend what is mentioned above and use "optimise storage" settings, and if there's specific photos you wish to have local copies on your device of, save them to iCloud Drive.

 

[xraydoc]

That doesn’t sound good. If they’re offloaded from the phone, that means they’re offloaded from iCloud too. And gone forever 😕

No. Not correct. The original is kept on iCloud. The full-resolution file is removed from the phone and a small thumbnail kept. The original full-resolution is redownloaded if you view it on your phone. Apple has been doing this for years and people aren’t losing photos because of it.

 

[Slartibart]

Sign out if iCloud completely. Delete the photos and sign back in. That seems like an approach that would work. Since you are signed out there’s no way the cloud side would be effected.

it doesn’t work like this. Sync will occur when you reconnect. That is implied in “Sync” and intended behaviour.

If you want a permanent backup of your photos/pictures - like “all pictures of ducks as of today” or “all photos in Apple Photos as of 17.Oct.2021, 17:28” - using Apple‘s service you have to go with the iCloud Drive.

See my post above on how to activate and use it.

 

[Wando64]

because I would want to keep photos in the cloud and not take up space on my hardware

Switch on ‘Optimise iPhone storage’, is the only reasonable and official solution to your ‘problem’.
You will not even notice it is ON, other than you will have loads of available space.

Apart from that, I am pretty certain that if you unlink a device from iCloud photos, then delete photos from that device, when you re-link the device to iCloud the photos from iCloud (all of them) will download and merge with those already on the device
, and viceversa.

 

[generdude]

The ”Optimize” setting will automatically remove originals from your phone as more space is needed. A very small thumbnail remains on your phone so you can find what you need. If you want to keep certain ones at full resolution, make them favorites.

Don‘t delete photos manually from your phone. The phone will manage its own space when “optimized” is on. Even if your phone storage is nearly full due to photo storage, ones not viewed in a while will be automatically off-loaded when more space is needed for other things. It works — don’t micromanage.

FYI, I have 37,000 photos in my library but it’s only occupying 37GB on my iPad mini. It’s well over 400GB on iCloud and on my HD backups.

This is the best explanation I have seen. I will rephrase it, keep it for reference for friends, and try it myself! Thank you.

 

[generdude]

The ”Optimize” setting will automatically remove originals from your phone as more space is needed. A very small thumbnail remains on your phone so you can find what you need. If you want to keep certain ones at full resolution, make them favorites.

Don‘t delete photos manually from your phone. The phone will manage its own space when “optimized” is on. Even if your phone storage is nearly full due to photo storage, ones not viewed in a while will be automatically off-loaded when more space is needed for other things. It works — don’t micromanage.

FYI, I have 37,000 photos in my library but it’s only occupying 37GB on my iPad mini. It’s well over 400GB on iCloud and on my HD backups.