Apple Intelligence is now available on iPhone, iPad, and Mac!
I just discovered, unfortunately, that when I delete photos from my iPhone that I don't need there anymore, that they are also deleted from my Photos on my Mac. How can I prevent this from happening? It did not used to be this wayi.
iMac Line (2012 and Later)
Hi
You seem to be syncing your photos using iCloud. iCloud maintains identical libraries on all your devices. What you do on one happens on all.
Presumably when it used not to be this way, you were not using iCloud (or it was not set up correctly)
If you want to save space on your phone then you can turn on "optimise phone storage" in the iCloud setting - and that will dramatically reduce the space your photos library consumes. (Full size originals will no longer be stored on your phone).
Thank you. My main concern is that once I download photos to my Mac in Photos, I no longer need nor want them on my iPhone. If I turn off iCloud syncing, will that solve the problem? Or will I lose a lot of pictures. I'm afraid that I have lost a lot of pictures over the past year as I thought once they were downloaded, they were no longer needed on my phone so they were deleted. I have not liked this version of Photos anyway and much preferred the old iPhoto which is no longer available.
I always connect my iphone to my computer to download anyway as that is what I was used to doing. If I unsync my pictures, will there be anything else that will be affected? I want to keep my calendar syncing and there may be other things as well. Thanks for your help.
No - You can stop iCloud syncing on your phone, and then anything you delete on your phone won't be replicated to the mac.
However, then you will need to manually transfer pictures from your phone to your mac using a USB cable.
You can just turn off iCloud photos in the icloud settings on your phone. Leave everything else checked, and they will sync as normal.
Do you have iCloud Photos enabled on your Mac and iPhone?
If you do do you also have "Optimize Storage" enabled on both one or both?
Thank you so much. I'll try that!
Ann
Deleting photos from iPhone but keep on my Mac
