I have over 6,000 photos on my phone and I need to free up space, but I don't want to lose any photos.

maloneblaich Said:

"I have over 6,000 photos on my phone and I need to free up space, but I don't want to lose any photos.: Is there a way I can delete the photos off of my iPhone, without deleting them anywhere else? I have an iPhone 11, and my iCloud stuff is on. But still, when I go to delete photos off of my iPhone, it asks to delete everywhere, as well.[...]"

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Export these Photos:

1. Export: these photos from your iPhone to your Mac.*
2. Export: these photos from your Mac to an external hard drive**
3. Delete: these photos from your iPhone.
4. Delete: these photos from your Mac (if desired).

*Go Here: Transfer Photos and Videos from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to your Mac or PC - Apple Support

** Go Here: Export Photos, Videos, Slideshows, and Memories from Photos on Mac - Apple Support

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.

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.

Please check this option

On your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch

1. Go to Settings > [your name] > iCloud.
2. Tap Photos.
3. Choose Optimize [device] Storage.

Then you have all originals in the iCloud and copies with lower resolution on your iPhone, this will free up space on your iPhone.

As soon as you modified a photo the system will automatically download the original, also if you zoom in the photo the original will be loaded.

Ralf