Can I delete photos off my iPhone To free up capacity but keep the on iCloud and my iPad ?

My answer has been to go to Google Photos. That's been great! It's funny. I bought a MacBook Pro this year bc I mistakenly thought I would have a happy Apple ecosystem. I didn't realize that Apple photos was built for sharing, rather than for storage; that uploading music from CDs I purchased transfers control of the music to Apple (unless I keep the original files); and that Apple's latest iOS updates force me to manually switch back to my preferred player for music to replace their player every SINGLE time I listen to music on my phone. Apple used to be great; now, it's just greedily trying to control content that belongs to its users. I can't imagine buying an Apple product again.

Jan. 28 --- yes, this is clear.

AND i agree with the above writers who say that Apple has not only mis-lead us about buying "more storage"-- but also makes it very unclear about this whole issue via the multiple similar sounding names of these disparate parts of the eco-system.

I agree with everything you've said, even after being a loyal mac for years. The whole reason I set up icloud with 2TB of memory was so that I could safely and permanently store our gazillion photos and videos there...OBVIOUSLY to free up space on the phone, the computer, and the ipad. This crap is absurd! Apple is becoming the Harley Davidson of computers....evolutionary at best!

"Thank you for your opinion, but you have made it clear that you don't understand."

It's pretty clear from this entire thread that very few people understand. That's the rub. It's apparently less confusing for people to use other services, which goes against a lifetime of "Mac makes everything easy" for everyone. That means that apple is losing its way. Icloud isn't simple and it isn't doing what people want...

Thank you. This answers the question for most of us based on the original question. I, like many apparently, signed up for icloud as an archival service. Are we saying ultimately that Mac doesn't have an archival service of any kind?

Thanks

Not sure what you mean by the Mac? The Photos app on the Mac creates a Photos Library which is stored locally on the hard drive, and which can be backed up using Time Machine.

But if you meant does Apple offer any sort of cloud-based archival service, then the answer to that is no.

Cheers,

GB

This made me "laugh out loud".

Was looking to try and understand what to do with iphone photos and iCloud. But I have only read 3-4 responses herein, mostly by randers4, and I am already amazed at how ridiculously complicated this is.

There are other apps and services for management of photos that are so much better, e.g. Google photo, and I was just looking to use iCloud as a secondary backup, but it's clearly useless. Any product that makes things this complicated and user-unfriendly is best ignored and avoided. Ultimately, abiding by the complex use rules will just trap the user in a one-way dead end where something very substantial will have to be given up in order to get free of some error or lock-up (trust me, it always ends up there). This was not designed with the user in mind, thinking also of competing services and how to be better. This was designed by someone who had very detailed own preferences and decided that his or her preferences were what everyone should want, without checking to see what people actually want and what is already offered.

Thankfully, not all product designers at Apple are this bad. This is just one of those things with Apple where it's best to look elsewhere.

AVOID!

Wow. I came here trying to free up space on my wife's iPhone, and let me say just how jaw-droppingly awful all this BS is. My phone is an Android. If I want to save my pictures or manage my memory, I plug my phone into my computer, copy what I want, delete what I want, and I'm done. I think we figured out how to do this around 2010. Apple thought this was too easy. My wife activated this photostream nonsense, and for the life of me I can't figure out how to delete gigabytes of photos off her phone. When I plug the phone into my computer, I can't delete anything. I can only see a few dozen pictures, and the rest I guess are on photostream I guess. Who knows if it's safe to delete them without losing them, and even then I have to do so ONE STINKING PICTURE AT A TIME. When I delete the few pictures I CAN delete, this doesn't free up any space. I can't figure out how to empty the trash.

This phone is going in the garbage as soon as we can save the pictures. I seriously hope she doesn't make the mistake of signing up for Apple headaches again. "Easy" and "just works" my butt. Just buy an Android phone. Google backs them up seamlessly, and managing your files is just easy.

christopherfrommonkton wrote:

Hi ,

How do I upload photos from my Iphone to my icloud account and then delete them from my Iphone, but keep on Icloud?

Obviously, I want to do this so I can free up space on my phone, but still keep the pictures forever.

Thanks.

The only way to do what you are asking is to make sure that iCloud Photo Library is not turned on on your iOS device, make sure it is turned on on your Mac, and them import your photos to your Mac so the Mac can upload the photos to iCloud: PHOTO IMPORT IOS TO MAC/PC. You would then sync the specific photos or albums that you want to have on your iPhone: iTunes 12 for Mac: Sync iPod, iPhone, or iPad

As has been already stated, iCloud Photo Library is not an archival service, it is a sharing service, so if you are not using it on more than one device or computer, it doesn't really serve any purpose.

If you want to archive your photos in the cloud, you should be using an archival service like Dropbox, Flkr, Google Photos, or Amazon Photos, and just use the old fashioned method outlined in the two support articles above.

Best of luck,

GB

Again even with the paid iCloud service, one cannot store photos in the cloud and also delete from device. #iCloudteam should be fired.

What’s the answer?

42

The answer has been posted roughly 30 times in this thread with 45 posts, so you can find the answer by reading it.

.

Jan 28. I apprecI ate all the work you are putting into this to try to explain it, but it’s still clear as mud.

😔