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I want to clear up space on my phone by deleting photos. If I’ve backed up my pictures to iCloud, can I delete them from my phone and not delete them from iCloud?

No storage space on my phone left. Want Im to clear up space and back up to iCloud and delete pictures from my phone without losing them on iCloud.

iPhone 11, iOS 15

Posted on Apr 9, 2022 7:48 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Apr 9, 2022 8:14 AM

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: Set up and use iCloud Photos - Apple Support


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.


If you want to turn off iCloud Photos on a device, see the information in: Get help with iCloud Photos - Apple Support


Another way that photos may be on iCloud (if you don’t have iCloud Photos turned on) is via a backup of an iOS device. The only thing you can do with a backup is use it to restore a device or set up a new device. The contents of backups are not viewable at iCloud.com and if you delete a photo from a device it will not be included in future backups and will be lost.


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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Apr 9, 2022 8:14 AM in response to 19FDJ91

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: Set up and use iCloud Photos - Apple Support


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.


If you want to turn off iCloud Photos on a device, see the information in: Get help with iCloud Photos - Apple Support


Another way that photos may be on iCloud (if you don’t have iCloud Photos turned on) is via a backup of an iOS device. The only thing you can do with a backup is use it to restore a device or set up a new device. The contents of backups are not viewable at iCloud.com and if you delete a photo from a device it will not be included in future backups and will be lost.


I want to clear up space on my phone by deleting photos. If I’ve backed up my pictures to iCloud, can I delete them from my phone and not delete them from iCloud?

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