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roklecat Author

Level 1

4 points

How do I archive photos & videos on iCloud without using any space on my iPhone?

I have 650GB of photos on my iCloud, having used it to backup my iPhone photos & videos for about ten years now.

To save space on my iPhone, Apple optimises the local storage of these files by saving lower resolution copies on the iPhone, but with so much data in the iCloud my iPhone storage is now full with over 200GB of low res images. I consequently want to archive some of my photos so that they are only stored on iCloud.

I thought there would be a way to store photos & video in my iCloud which do not get duplicated on my iPhone (e.g. in an online only folder), but this doesn't seem to be a feature Apple offers.

I do not want to transfer my photos from iCloud to a hard drive, because I then risk losing them if the hard drive breaks. I have purchased 2TB of iCloud space so online space is not an issue.

What can I do!?

Posted on Oct 30, 2021 1:36 PM

Top-ranking reply

FoxFifth

Level 10

472,197 points

Posted on Oct 30, 2021 2:03 PM

Apple does not currently offer cloud-only storage for photos. If that is what you want or need, you may want to explore 3rd party options such as Google Photos or Dropbox.

iCloud Photos is a syncing service. Any photo you delete from a device where iCloud Photos is turned on will also be deleted from iCloud and from any other device connected to iCloud Photos. You can potentially reduce the storage space required on a device by turning on Optimize Storage. See: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204264

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How do I archive photos & videos on iCloud without using any space on my iPhone?

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