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How to delete photos from my iPhone without them getting deleted from iCloud?

Space on my iPhone keeps running out, and yet I have 3T storage of iCloud. I don’t one why now all the photos in my gallery are showing restoring from iCloud? When I delete some photos on my phone, they get deleted in iCloud as well. How can I save in iCloud and then delete the ones on my phone without them getting deleted from iCloud?


[Re-Titled by Moderator]

iPhone 7, iOS 14

Posted on Jun 25, 2022 7:34 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jun 25, 2022 9:00 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.


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.


1 reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jun 25, 2022 9:00 AM in response to godsgemstone

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.


How to delete photos from my iPhone without them getting deleted from iCloud?

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