Deleting photos from My Photo Stream Removes them from albums

Did you delete the photos from your My Photo Stream with the Command+Delete key combination? That will delete it from the entire library. Just use the Delete key to remove them from the My Photo Stream and they will remain in the library.

Note: If you haven't emptied the Recently Deleted album you can recover those photos that you deleted.

An easier way would be to just uncheck the My Photo Stream in Photos/iCloud settings pane. The My Photo Stream will be gone and the photos will remain in the library.

Eugene user wrote:

I am preparing for the end of My Photo Stream. I am on my Mac Mini running Ventura. I moved some photos from My Photo Stream to albums under My Albums. When I delete the photos from My Photo Stream they are also deleted from the albums. How can I move them out of My Photo Stream and keep them in the selected albums.

My Photo Stream - Apple Support

We have been cross-posting. I did not see your additional information before I replied to your previous post.

Yes, My Photo Stream is stored in iCloud, but separate from the other iCloud services like iCloud Photos or Shared albums. The cloud storage used by My Photo Stream does not count against your iCloud + subscription or your free 5GB of cloud storage. And Photos you delete from My Photo Stream are not saved in Recently Deleted, as My Photo Stream is not a part of your Photos Library, it is only shown there.

During the last month the behaviour of My Photo Stream has changed and is no longer working as documented. When I delete a photo I imported from my Photo Stream, it has also been removed from My Photo Stream.

If you are lucky, you might still be seeing the My Photo Stream photos inside the Photos Library package.

When I looked inside my Library package I found the Photo Stream still cached in this folder:

Select the Photos Library in the Finder, ctrl-click it, then use "Show Package Contents".

In the window that opens, navigate to "Scopes > cloudsharing > data derivatives. But be careful - just look, do not modify anything.

Do these folders still exist?

You are right - the photos in My Photo Stream do not count against your free 5GB cloud storage or your iCloud+ subscription. And My Photo stream is only storing the photos added during the last thirty days in iCloud, at most 1000 photos. They will be purged automatically after 30 days anyway. There is no need for you to delete photos from My Photo Stream, as they will be deleted automatically from iCloud when Apple is shutting down the servers.

The confusing thing is, that you may be seeing on your devices more photos in My Photo stream than are currently still in iCloud. My Photo stream may be showing different photos on all of your devices. Your devices may be keeping photos cached, space permitting, even after the photos have already been deleted from iCloud. And if you try to delete a photo from My Photo STream, that is no longer in iCloud, you will delete it from your device.

I moved photos from my photo stream to a new album I created on my iPhone and called it “old stream”. Confirmed that the move was a success. Then deleted all the photos in my photo stream. Suddenly the new album “old stream” was empty and so was the original My photo stream. Checked recently deleted and the photos were not there? How do I recover the photos? This was straight forward file management. I get that the My photo stream was on iCloud. That’s why I created a new album and moved the photos. Thoughts?

I would not bother to delete photos from My Photo Stream any more. Apple will erase it automatically when it is shutting down My Photo Stream on 26 July 2023.

On a Mac all photos are automatically imported from My Photo Stream. We cannot prevent the auto import.

The items in My Photo Stream are linked to the imported copies on a mac and that is why deleting from My Photo Stream can delete the imported photos.

If you want to be sure that all photos have been imported from My Photo Stream, drag all of them to a temporary album and distribute them from there to the albums where you want them. Removing a photo from your own album with ⌫ will not delete it from the library.

Since I did this file management move in my iPhone and I don’t have a Mac, I can’t navigate to the structure you have shown me. I did login to iCloud online and see that you are correct and the My stream environment is not available to see. I did notice that the folder that I used to download the My stream photos to via my iPhone, was indeed sitting in the My Albums list but still had the old name. When I was preparing to back up the My stream photos on my iPhone I used an existing album that I was no longer using and gave it a new name. Old stream. It saved correctly then I carried out the “move to album” function and it worked perfectly. So I went back to the original My stream and selected all and then deleted. Immediately, both albums emptied. I gulped and went to the recently deleted only to see it was also empty. Screwed.

Sorry, i overlooked your mention of the iPhone, because the original post has been about a mac, according to the signature "Mac mini, macOS 13.4".