How does iCloud work?

Question

How does iCloud work?

My iCloud storage is almost full. Up to now, all photos from my iPhone (but not my two iPads) would automatically sync to my Mac.

I liked the convenience of not having to plug my phone into my Mac to sync photos, but I don't really need all my photos to be accessible from my iPhone.

So I need to start clearing out some storage space, but I don't know how to proceed or how the whole process works. Here's what I understand, and what I'm confused about:

Once photos from my phone are synced to my Mac, I know that I can safely delete them off of my phone, and they will stay on the Mac.

Do these deleted photos stay on iCloud as well? This may be the cause of iCloud getting full, because much of what I save are actually screenshots from games, funny online memes, etc.

If deleted photos stay on iCloud, this means that I must delete junk images from three places: my iPhone, my Mac and iCloud itself. This is more of a burden than a convenience.

Am I correct in assuming that photos deleted off of any of the three sources will not be deleted from the other two? Is there a way to set iCloud as a syncing mechanism rather than a storage medium, so that photos vanish from iCloud as soon as they are synced to my Mac?

Mac mini, macOS 10.15

Posted on Jun 24, 2020 2:30 PM

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Answer 1

Jun 26, 2020 3:06 PM in response to razmee209

Hi, I read the document and saw this section:

"The photos and videos that you delete on one device are deleted everywhere that you use iCloud Photos. Photos and videos stay in the Recently Deleted folder for 30 days before they're deleted permanently."

I tried this feature, deleting one image from my Mac, and after a bit, found that the corresponding image was deleted from my iPhone.

This leads to a few questions:

If images are deleted from my iPhone, are they also deleted from my Mac? This is a problem, because I have a lot more storage available on my Mac than my iPhone, and I may wish to keep the images on my Mac while freeing up space on my iPhone

Since my iCloud storage is getting filled up, I need to delete photos from iCloud. Can I do this without deleting them on my other devices?

Is there a way to set photos on iCloud to "auto-expire" after a certain number of days after they are transferred to my Mac?

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Answer 2

razmee209

Level 10

193,764 points

Jun 24, 2020 3:49 PM in response to Timothy Arends1

Read here Set up and use iCloud Photos - Apple Support

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Answer 3

Jun 26, 2020 7:21 PM in response to razmee209

Well, there has to be some way to delete off of iCloud without deleting off of all my devices. Maybe by unlinking iCloud. But I just want to unlink the photos, not all of iCloud.

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Answer 4

razmee209

Level 10

193,764 points

Jun 26, 2020 3:16 PM in response to Timothy Arends1

No, as you have in the link I posted, that is how icloud syncing works, what you do on one device reflects on the other device.

Purchase more icloud storage for your phone.

No there is no "auto - expire"

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Answer 5

Jul 2, 2020 1:49 PM in response to Timothy Arends1

I think I see how it works...In system preferences > Apple ID you can turn off (uncheck) Photos and photos will no longer be synced. On iPhone, you go to Settings, tap on your name > iCloud and turn off Photos. Then you can delete photos off iCloud Photos to save space.

Apple support told me that you need to turn off Photos on the Mac to keep photos deleted from iCloud from being deleted on the Mac, which seems like a dirty trick to me. Content that the user owns and created SHOULD NOT be deleted off your Mac, which you also paid for. The user should at least have a choice.

So far, I've deleted a lot of photos off iCloud, but they are still on my iPhone ,even though Photos is still turned ON in Settings, so perhaps it works differently on Mac and iPhone??

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How does iCloud work?

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