How To Remove Photos From iPhone Without Deleting From iCloud

Greetings loyle,

What you explained as far as deleting photos from your iPhone and it reflecting across all your devices is expected behavior when you have iCloud Photos enabled on all your devices. You can see more information about this expected behavior here: Set up and use iCloud Photos - Apple Support

How iCloud Photos works

iCloud Photos automatically keeps every photo and video you take in iCloud, so you can access your library from any device, anytime you want. Any changes you make to your collection on one device change on your other devices too. Your photos and videos are organized into Years, Months, Days, and All Photos.And all of your Memories and People are updated everywhere. That way you can quickly find the moment, family member, or friend you're looking for.

See also this page with information on how to turn off iCloud Photos and delete photos from only one device: Get help with iCloud Photos - Apple Support.

How do I turn off iCloud Photos on only one device?

You can turn off iCloud Photos on a single device when you follow these steps:

• On your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, go to Settings > [your name] > iCloud > Photos, then turn off iCloud Photos.

• On your Mac, open the Photos app, then choose Photos > Settings or Photos > Preferences. Click iCloud, then deselect iCloud Photos.

• On your Apple TV 4K or Apple TV HD, go to Settings > Accounts > iCloud. Under Photos, press Select to turn off iCloud Photos.

If you have Optimize Storage turned on, you might not have all of your original photos and videos on your device. To download the original photos and videos on your device, go to Settings > [your name] > iCloud > Photos and select Download and Keep Originals. On your Mac, open Photos, choose Photos > Settings or Photos > Preferences, then click iCloud, then select Download Originals to this Mac. Keep your device plugged in to power and connected to the internet. After your originals download, you can turn off iCloud Photos. You can also select the photos and videos that you want to download from iCloud.com.

Before you turn off iCloud Photos, you might want to make a copy of your photos and videos.

We hope this information helps you out.

Best wishes!

Hi Loyle,

Thanks for contacting Apple Support Communities!

We can help clear up how iCloud Photos works for you.

When you have iCloud Photos enabled on your devices signed in with the same Apple ID, your photos are updated automatically across your devices. If you have iCloud Photos enabled on your iPhone and Mac, delete a photo from your iPhone, it is also removed from your Mac. You can learn more about how iCloud Photos works here: Set up and use iCloud Photos - Apple Support

"How iCloud Photos works

iCloud Photos automatically keeps every photo and video you take in iCloud, so you can access your library from any device, anytime you want. Any changes you make to your collection on one device change on your other devices too. Your photos and videos are organized into Years, Months, Days, and All Photos. And all of your Memories and People are updated everywhere. That way you can quickly find the moment, family member, or friend you're looking for."

If you turn iCloud Photos off, they will no longer upload to iCloud and will be stored on the device if you choose to download your photos. If you choose to delete your photos, your photos will be deleted, and you won't have access to them any longer. This article explains in detail about how to download your iCloud Photos and what happens when you do: Download iCloud photos and videos - Apple Support

"What happens when you delete photos or videos

Remember, when you delete a photo from iCloud Photos, it also deletes from iCloud and any other device where you're signed in with the same Apple ID — even if you turned on Download and Keep Originals or Download Originals to this Mac. If you choose to download your originals, this also impacts your device storage. Learn more about how to manage your device storage. You can also learn how to AirDrop your photos and videos to another device."

We hope this helps you.

Take care!

Hi loyle,

From what is being mentioned, removing the photos and videos from the iPhone advises the use of iCloud, and if enabling iCloud Photos, you can access them on other devices as well. With the download option, this will download the content that is currently stored within iCloud if you have any. We hope this clarification helps.

Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.