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How does iCloud+ work for a phone with less storage?

I have an iPhone XR with 64 GB of storage, but I just bought iCloud+ with 200 GB of storage. Am I able to save photos to iCloud+ and delete them from my phone to free up space? Or are they connected to if I delete them from my phone they will also be deleted from iCloud+?

iPhone XR, iOS 15

Posted on Sep 5, 2022 5:40 PM

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Posted on Sep 5, 2022 5:50 PM

No, you can’t do that. iCloud is a syncing service not a cloud archive. So anything you delete from the phone will also be removed from iCloud. What you can do is enable Optimize Phone Storage; this will save lower resolution, smaller copies of your photos on your phone, but maintain the full resolution in iCloud.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Sep 5, 2022 5:50 PM in response to oddy_squid

No, you can’t do that. iCloud is a syncing service not a cloud archive. So anything you delete from the phone will also be removed from iCloud. What you can do is enable Optimize Phone Storage; this will save lower resolution, smaller copies of your photos on your phone, but maintain the full resolution in iCloud.

How does iCloud+ work for a phone with less storage?

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