I keep seeing tech columnists suggesting that you can free up photo storage space on your iphone by backing up everything to icloud and then deleting photos from your device. But as far as I can see, once you delete them from your phone you *also* delete them from icloud--that is, icloud just mirrors whatever is on your device.
Is there, in fact, a way to keep photos in icloud when you delete them from your phone?
iPhone 6, iOS 12
No.
iCloud Photos is a syncing service. Any photo you delete from a device where iCloud Photos is turned on will also be deleted from iCloud and from any other device connected to iCloud Photos. You can potentially reduce the storage space required on a device by turning on Optimize Storage. See: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204264
Apple does not currently offer cloud-only storage for photos. If that is what you want or need, you may want to explore 3rd party options such as Google Photos or Dropbox.
Another way that photos may be on iCloud (if you don’t have iCloud Photo Library turned on) is via a backup of an iOS device. The only thing you can do with a backup is use it to restore a device or set up a new device. The contents of backups are not viewable at iCloud.com and if you delete a photo from a device it will not be included in future backups and will be lost.
No.
iCloud Photos is a syncing service. Any photo you delete from a device where iCloud Photos is turned on will also be deleted from iCloud and from any other device connected to iCloud Photos. You can potentially reduce the storage space required on a device by turning on Optimize Storage. See: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204264
Apple does not currently offer cloud-only storage for photos. If that is what you want or need, you may want to explore 3rd party options such as Google Photos or Dropbox.
Another way that photos may be on iCloud (if you don’t have iCloud Photo Library turned on) is via a backup of an iOS device. The only thing you can do with a backup is use it to restore a device or set up a new device. The contents of backups are not viewable at iCloud.com and if you delete a photo from a device it will not be included in future backups and will be lost.
Thank you, you've confirmed what I thought. I have backed up my photos to a 3rd party site already, but I keep reading "experts" suggesting that icloud offers the same capability. I just wondered if I was missing something, so I appreciate your detailed clarification.
icloud photos
