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If I have icloud photos, can I safely delete photos from my phone?

Hi All,

I'm a bit naive about this storage stuff and now my iphone is choked. Can anyone help with a few "simple" questions.

  1. If I import a photo into Photos, can I safely delete it from my iPhone? This is, it is backed up.
  2. I understand that iCloud storage will always reflect the 'real world'. If I delete from my phone the photo is deleted on all devices and iCloud. Is this correct?
  3. If I have iCloud Photos, however, I can set it to keep all photos taken (backup) and then safely delete photos from my phone. Is this correct?

Any advice the community can give would be appreciated.


Chris Curtis


Posted on Dec 29, 2019 10:57 PM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Dec 30, 2019 1:05 AM

  1. Yes
  2. Yes
  3. No. iCloud backup doesn’t include information already stored in iCloud, like Contacts, Calendars, Bookmarks, Mail, Notes, Voice Memosshared photosiCloud Photos*, Health data, call history, and files you store in iCloud Drive.


*-If you had turned on iCloud Photos, your content is automatically stored in iCloud


What exactly do you want to do, Import or Sync?

Backup: To protect your data from loss, a copy of your device data is kept in coded form. Can be used in case of upgrade to new iPhone or loss of iPhone etc.. by restoring from Backup. Option for both iTunes and iCloud is available,

Import: Store on Mac / PC / External HDD for long-term (Risk of HDD corruption / malfunctioning) Or Import from Mac/PC to iPhone. Photos and videos that you sync from your computer to your iOS device using iTunes can't be imported back to your computer. 

Sync: Keep your data visible and available on all devices that you access to. Delete on one device will delete on all devices. Sync your photos manually with iTunes. Each time that you sync your iOS device with iTunes, the photos and videos on your iOS device update to match the albums on your computer.

Upload: To Cloud Drives (iCloud Drive, Google Drive, OneDrive, DropBox, Flickr, box, AmazonDrive etc) Long term data storage. with full data protection. Access from anywhere any time


2 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Dec 30, 2019 1:05 AM in response to 9427Kath

  1. Yes
  2. Yes
  3. No. iCloud backup doesn’t include information already stored in iCloud, like Contacts, Calendars, Bookmarks, Mail, Notes, Voice Memosshared photosiCloud Photos*, Health data, call history, and files you store in iCloud Drive.


*-If you had turned on iCloud Photos, your content is automatically stored in iCloud


What exactly do you want to do, Import or Sync?

Backup: To protect your data from loss, a copy of your device data is kept in coded form. Can be used in case of upgrade to new iPhone or loss of iPhone etc.. by restoring from Backup. Option for both iTunes and iCloud is available,

Import: Store on Mac / PC / External HDD for long-term (Risk of HDD corruption / malfunctioning) Or Import from Mac/PC to iPhone. Photos and videos that you sync from your computer to your iOS device using iTunes can't be imported back to your computer. 

Sync: Keep your data visible and available on all devices that you access to. Delete on one device will delete on all devices. Sync your photos manually with iTunes. Each time that you sync your iOS device with iTunes, the photos and videos on your iOS device update to match the albums on your computer.

Upload: To Cloud Drives (iCloud Drive, Google Drive, OneDrive, DropBox, Flickr, box, AmazonDrive etc) Long term data storage. with full data protection. Access from anywhere any time


If I have icloud photos, can I safely delete photos from my phone?

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