You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!
When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.
When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.
💡 Did you know?
⏺ If you can't accept iCloud Terms and Conditions... Learn more >
⏺ If you don't see your iCloud notes in the Notes app... Learn more >
⏺ If you can't accept iCloud Terms and Conditions... Learn more >
⏺ If you don't see your iCloud notes in the Notes app... Learn more >
Hi. I haven't been using iCloud to back up my photos for very long, but I'm trying to get into it. How can I delete photos off of my phone, but keep them, say...on my MacBook Pro and in iCloud?
When I go to delete a photo off my phone there seems to be a warning that they will be deleted everywhere.
Thanks for any help.
iPhone 11 Pro
If I delete a photo on my phone, it will delete it from iCloud, which is fine, but will it delete the copy stored on my laptop?
No. Deleting a photo from ANY one device, deletes it from ALL devices and iCloud.
“When you edit photos on any device with iCPL enabled, the same edits (including deletions, additions, etc) are synced to ALL other iCPL-enabled devices, including iCloud itself. So, NO, you will not be able to delete the local copies.”
The best strategy to adopt is to:
Think of iCPL as the “master” library that has everything you want to keep, everything is at its full resolution, and acts to sync everything to everything.
If I delete a photo on my phone, it will delete it from iCloud, which is fine, but will it delete the copy stored on my laptop?
No. Deleting a photo from ANY one device, deletes it from ALL devices and iCloud.
“When you edit photos on any device with iCPL enabled, the same edits (including deletions, additions, etc) are synced to ALL other iCPL-enabled devices, including iCloud itself. So, NO, you will not be able to delete the local copies.”
The best strategy to adopt is to:
Think of iCPL as the “master” library that has everything you want to keep, everything is at its full resolution, and acts to sync everything to everything.
iCloud Photo Library (iCPL) is a syncing service, not a backup, or a cloud storage service.
When you edit photos on any device with iCPL enabled, the same edits (including deletions, additions, etc) are synced to all other iCPL-enabled devices, including iCloud itself. So, NO, you will not be able to delete the local copies.
If you are concerned about the amount of storage used by Photos on your device, change iCPL to keep an Optimized local library.
Set up and use iCloud Photos (Apple overview):
You've been a great help to me, and I really appreciate it. I read your helpful link, but still can't figure out the part about keeping the pictures on my MacBook Pro. If I delete a photo on my phone, it will delete it from iCloud, which is fine, but will it delete the copy stored on my laptop? Thanks.
No. Deleting a photo from ANY one device, deletes it from ALL devices and iCloud.
Made a mistake!
That answer should have said:
YES. Deleting from ANY one device, deletes it from ALL devices and iCloud.
I must have gotten lost in all the edits and forgot the wording of your question. Sorry! The full sentence is correct.
Can't figure out iCloud photos
