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AVBeatMan

macrumors 603
Original poster
Nov 10, 2010
5,985
3,856
Can anyone tell me how I place all my photo’s (14,000) off my iPhone and store in iCloud? I want to free up the storage on my iPhone.
 
I'm assuming you've checked "Optimize Mac Storage" in Photos already?
Or you don't even want the thumbnails?
 
In the settings app under iCloud, click Photos and your phone will start uploading all those photos slowly. It will likely take a few days (and you might regret doing it)
 
What I want to do is place certain photos in iCloud. I think they're all there already but I believe if I delete from my iPhone (which I want to do) they'll also be deleted from iCould? I just want them off my phone and placed instead in iCloud.
 
What I want to do is place certain photos in iCloud. I think they're all there already but I believe if I delete from my iPhone (which I want to do) they'll also be deleted from iCould? I just want them off my phone and placed instead in iCloud.

Do you still want them accessible through Photos?
 
What I want to do is place certain photos in iCloud. I think they're all there already but I believe if I delete from my iPhone (which I want to do) they'll also be deleted from iCould? I just want them off my phone and placed instead in iCloud.

What a lot of people fail to understand is that iCloud is not particularly a cloud storage device, but it’s a syncing platform. A way to sync photos (and other things) between various Apple devices. You are correct, delete a photo from your iPhone and it will be deleted from iCloud and also any others apple devices that you have setup to use the same iCloud account.
 
recommend not to use iCloud as a storage repository for loads of pictures that you don't want on your iPhone.
While technically possible (I've done it) it's a pain to upload a lot of them.

How you'd do it is upload them via the iCloud directory in the Files app (used to be called iCloud Drive). Then they won't sync with anything and will basically be sitting in iicloud like on a FTP server (but with previews). One of the many problems with iCloud Stirage (dont get me started) is its not like a web server. You can't share hyperlinks to the files, only send them as attachments.
 
Wait..
So I just found out my wife can share her 200gb iCloud membership.
I bought the 64gb pro max and figure I could off load my photos from my phone onto iCloud and clear photos from my phone (to make room).
What I just read is... that if I delete my photos from my phone, after uploading to iCloud, it will delete it from iCloud/forever?
Little bit confused
 
Okay I see.
I seen this option several times before. I thought it was for removing unused apps.
Thanks
 
Wait..
So I just found out my wife can share her 200gb iCloud membership.
I bought the 64gb pro max and figure I could off load my photos from my phone onto iCloud and clear photos from my phone (to make room).
What I just read is... that if I delete my photos from my phone, after uploading to iCloud, it will delete it from iCloud/forever?
Little bit confused

Yes. iCloud is not a backup, it’s a synced folder of sorts.
If you want to save space just connect with the iCloud storage account and tell your phone to optimize storage. It will keep he full res photos in the cloud, and leaves thumbnails you can still keep track of.
I did this exact thing for my dad for the same reason, it works great.
 
If you want to delete some fixed amount of photos to clear fixed amount of space then you have basically two options -- Google Photos or exporting your photos to an external drive, then delete them from the device.

Another confusion to add about iCloud -- "Optimize storage" won't remove all photos. It will dynamically offload full-res versions of photos when iOS needs space. So you won't get 20GB from start.
 
iCloud is for syncing among devices. If you want to store all your photos in an online service, uploading to Flickr is the way to go.
 
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