I want to delete my photos from my iphone as my storage is full even though i pay monthly and i upgraded it. So i want them to stay in my mac after i delete them from my iphone. What should i do ? I couldnt really understand how does icloud actually work.
MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 13.0
The main purpose of iCloud Photos is to keep the Photos Libraries identical and and perfectly in sync across all your devices, with iCloud as the central storage for syncing. all photos you are keeping in iCloud will be mirrored on all your synced devices, so you are seeing the same photos ans albums everywhere. and when you work with your photos on one of your devices - add adjustment, captions, faces, or import or delete photos, this will be updated in icloud and sync from there to your other devices.
While you are using iCloud Photos on your iPhone, you must not delete any photos from the iPhone, as the deletion will sync to your Mac as well. if you want to have less photos on your iPhone than on your Mac, you should not use iCloud Photos on the iPhone.
You can save storage on your iPhone with iCloud, by using the option "Optimize iPhone Storage" in the Settings > iCloud. Then iCloud will remove some of the high resolution versions of your photos from the iPhone and replace them by smaller, optimized versions for browsing. This will happen fully automatically. You cannot control which photos will get optimized. And iCloud will not optimize all photos, only if need be and you need more free storage.
The main purpose of iCloud Photos is to keep the Photos Libraries identical and and perfectly in sync across all your devices, with iCloud as the central storage for syncing. all photos you are keeping in iCloud will be mirrored on all your synced devices, so you are seeing the same photos ans albums everywhere. and when you work with your photos on one of your devices - add adjustment, captions, faces, or import or delete photos, this will be updated in icloud and sync from there to your other devices.
While you are using iCloud Photos on your iPhone, you must not delete any photos from the iPhone, as the deletion will sync to your Mac as well. if you want to have less photos on your iPhone than on your Mac, you should not use iCloud Photos on the iPhone.
You can save storage on your iPhone with iCloud, by using the option "Optimize iPhone Storage" in the Settings > iCloud. Then iCloud will remove some of the high resolution versions of your photos from the iPhone and replace them by smaller, optimized versions for browsing. This will happen fully automatically. You cannot control which photos will get optimized. And iCloud will not optimize all photos, only if need be and you need more free storage.
The "Optimize storage" that léonie mentioned is a great way to go to keep all you pictures on your phone without taking up so much space. You can choose that on the Mac, too, to save storage space, there.
Another way to go may be to keep two Photos Libraries on your Mac. One, the un-synced one, would have all your older pictures, while the other library, synced to your phone through iCloud, would have more recent pictures. There are some complications with this, though.
The synced library must be the one designated as the "System Library," and it is the library that is used by other apps to access your pictures--like for screensaver images or uploading to the internet. Of course, in addition to recent images, you can add whatever pictures you like to the System Library, and they will appear on your phone, as well.
Another complication is that the "Old Picture Library" would be your only copy of those pictures. To be safe, you would need a copy of this library on an external hard drive.
If you're interested in doing that, see this article:
Create additional photo libraries in Photos on Mac - Apple Support (IE)
I want to delete my photos from my iphone, but i want them to stay in my mac.
