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I have a 2020 MBP with 512GB of Flash storage. Over 300GB is being occupied by Photos - even though I have iCloud turned on, and all settings would indicate that the photos should not be stored on my Mac.
How do I delete the photos from my Mac without removing them from iCloud?
MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.15
When you say you "have iCloud turned on", do you mean you have iCloud Photos enabled (among all the various services offered under the iCloud label)? I'll assume so.
The short answer to "How do I delete the photos from my Mac without removing them from iCloud?" is that you don't if you want to keep the Mac connected to iCloud Photos.
iCloud Photos is a syncing service, not a photo storage service. It keeps full-resolution copies of your photos and videos, but copies also remain in the libraries on every device (Mac, iPhone, iPad) connected to the cloud version. Adding photos to one device adds them to the cloud library, then to other devices. Editing photos on one device makes the same edits in the cloud library, then on other devices. Likewise, deleting photos on one device deletes them from the cloud library, then from other devices.
The way to leverage iCloud Photos to reduce (not eliminate) storage use on one of your devices is to enable "Optimize ... Storage" on that device (e.g., "Optimize Mac Storage" on your Mac). After you do that, Photos will automatically detect storage becoming tight on your device and discard the full resolution copies of enough photos to ease the storage constraint, keeping copies with lower resolution. This is fully automatic, with no explicit controls on when Photos decided storage is tight, which photos it chooses to optimize, or when it decides to stop the optimization process.
When you say you "have iCloud turned on", do you mean you have iCloud Photos enabled (among all the various services offered under the iCloud label)? I'll assume so.
The short answer to "How do I delete the photos from my Mac without removing them from iCloud?" is that you don't if you want to keep the Mac connected to iCloud Photos.
iCloud Photos is a syncing service, not a photo storage service. It keeps full-resolution copies of your photos and videos, but copies also remain in the libraries on every device (Mac, iPhone, iPad) connected to the cloud version. Adding photos to one device adds them to the cloud library, then to other devices. Editing photos on one device makes the same edits in the cloud library, then on other devices. Likewise, deleting photos on one device deletes them from the cloud library, then from other devices.
The way to leverage iCloud Photos to reduce (not eliminate) storage use on one of your devices is to enable "Optimize ... Storage" on that device (e.g., "Optimize Mac Storage" on your Mac). After you do that, Photos will automatically detect storage becoming tight on your device and discard the full resolution copies of enough photos to ease the storage constraint, keeping copies with lower resolution. This is fully automatic, with no explicit controls on when Photos decided storage is tight, which photos it chooses to optimize, or when it decides to stop the optimization process.
Do not delete any photos you want to keep. They will be deleted in iCloud as well.
Use only the "optimise Storage" feature, that Mar described. If you want to optimise as much as possible immediately, start over with a new empty library. Do not delete the photos in Photos, delete the Photos Library and create a new, empty one as your iCloud Photos Library. This is described here:
How to force Photos for Mac to Optimise the Storage Immediately
But make sure, your photos have already all been uploaded to iCloud, and keep a backup copy of your current library, before you turn on "Optimise Mac Storage". Once you are using "Optimise Mac Storage" and the photos are only in iCloud, it will very time consuming to create regular backups of your photos, because Time Machine cannot include the optimised photos into the backup. How to back up an optimized iCloud Photos Library - Apple Community
Why are photos/videos taking up space on my Mac if I have iCloud turned on?
