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

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

jnzllwgr wrote:

I have a new 32GB iPad Pro and already it has 13GB occupied with the Photos from the iCloud Photo Sharing. Its just a shame that the device is almost obsolete before I even add additional apps/data to the device. And I don't even intend to take photos with it, but I really only wish to view images on the iPad.

Since I can only presume Apple monitors this forum, I hope that the confusion and challenges that many customers are having can help shape the next generation of image management. Personally, I'd like a way to segregate images by time. Similar to setting how much of your browser history you wish to keep, it would be helpful for Apple to allow the user to set a parameter where, once images reach a certain age (3 months, 6 months, 1 year, etc.) they go into a "deep" iCloud Photo Management/Storage condition to limit the memory on peripheral devices. I would think that the programming could identify highly mobile devices (iPad and iphone) and keep their storage lean where on laptops or desktops, you could continue to readily see and manage your full history of images. Just my two cents...thrown into the vaccuum of this forum. ;-).

Thanks for your help GB. //jz

OK, so your device isn't "obsolete". If you are using iCloud Photo Library, and you have "Optimize" turned on under Settings>Photos & Camera, then iCloud Photo Library manages your photos as you have described above. iCloud Photo Library determines how much room is available on your device, and only downloads as many full resolution photos as your device has room for. The remaining photos are represented as thumbnails that you can manually download if you wish.

iCloud Photo Library with Optimize turned on is a dynamic management system, that determines the number of full res photos based on your iOS device's memory constraints. If you had a user option that overrode the dynamic nature of the iCloud Photo Library management system, then it simply wouldn't be able to work. The management system may only download full res photos for the last month or may download them for the last 6 months, based on the number of photos in your library and the amount of room on your device. Overriding this with a user parameter would prevent the dynamic management system from working efficiently.

Here are a couple of support articles that may clear up some of your questions:

iCloud Photo Library FAQ - Apple Support

iCloud Photo Library Help - Apple Support

And, I can assure you that Apple does not "monitor these forums" to ferret out issues and problems. We have Hosts who monitor the forums to ensure that people conduct themselves within the TOU, but there is no monitoring by "Apple" in general. Apple does read Feedback (Apple - Feedback), so the most effective way for you to communicate with them, is to use that link.

Cheers,

GB

I think it's "screwed the pooch"....

Photo Stream is created when you are signed into iCloud and have the Photo Stream option on. It will save up to 1 month or 1000 photos for a particular device (whichever comes first), in iCloud (but does not count against your iCloud Storage), and will share those photos with all other devices that are signed into that same iCloud account, and which have the Photo Stream option turned on.

If you are not using iCloud Photo Library, then you will also have a Camera Roll on your device in the Albums section of the Photos app, as well as the standard albums Favorites, Favorite Memories, People, Places, Videos, Selfies, Live Photos, Portrait (if you have an iPhone 7 or higher), Panoramas, Slo-mo, Bursts, and Recently Deleted, in addition to the My Albums section which has albums that you have created on your device, or which you have sync'd from your computer.

You also may have Shared Photo Streams which are groups of photos that you have selected to share with others, or which others have selected to share with you.

If you are using iCloud Photo Library, then things are organized differently:

iCloud Photo Library FAQ - Apple Support

iCloud Photo Library Help - Apple Support

The demands of users of iPhones and Macs have resulted in a sophisticated and complex photo app which does require that you take some time to learn about and familiarize yourself with.

The functionality and usage of the iPhone and Mac continue to remain intuitive in many ways, but this is not the iPhone of 10 years ago which could do very little except make phone calls and provide some very basic applications for the user to enjoy.

Today's iPhones are as powerful, varied, and complex as any computer, so you simply cannot expect every aspect to be intuitive. The support articles are out there to help you to gain a better understanding of the power that has been placed in your hands with the device and the apps that go with it.

Cheers,

GB

Shannon Wilson1 wrote:

Yeah, **** that autocorrect. 😁

I still don't get the difference between Photostream and iCloud Photo Library. Is it two different things?

Yes, they are two different things:

1. Photo Stream is a cloud-based stream of the last 30 days or 1000 photos that have been taken by a particular device. Here's a summary:

- The device has to be signed into iCloud, and have Photo Stream turned on

- Any other device that is signed into the same iCloud account with Photo Stream turned on will be able to see those photos and will also be able to share any photos that are taken on that device with other devices signed into iCloud with Photo Stream turned on

- This includes your Mac. You can turn on Photo Stream on your Mac, and you will have a Photo Stream Album under the Album section in the sidebar in the Photos app

- Photos in your Mac's Photo Stream album will automatically be imported to your Mac

- Photo Stream photos do not take up your iCloud storage

- Although it may appear that you have more than 30 days or 1000 Photo Stream Photos on a device or in your Mac's Photo Stream album, if you turn off Photo Stream, then turn it back on, any photos over the 30 day/1000 photo limit will not re-load since they were only being stored locally at that point and not in the cloud

- Videos are not included in any Photo Streams, so if you are importing to the Photos app on your Mac, you have to physically import those videos by hooking up your device and importing them, rather than relying on Photo Stream to do that

It sounds like it is, yet basically the same thing. My goal is to have access from all devices, AND have files actually stored ON my Mac (not just in some nebulous "cloud, nevermind the acrobatics one has to go through to find where the actual files are stored on the hard drive).

So, as indicated above, they are not the same thing. And based on the goal you stated in this paragraph, Photo Stream would do the job for you. That is what I use. And unless it is totally impossible for me to use sharing, or dragging/dropping, or exporting, I NEVER try to find anything in the library structure on the hard drive. It is totally not intended to be accessed by us users, and the tools provided with the Photos apps should always provide you with a much easier way to get a photo to where you want it.

Then there's iCloud and iCloud Drive. Same? Different?

iCloud is the umbrella term for all of the services provided under that umbrella. Those services are:

- iOS Device backup storage

- iCloud Photo Library

- iCloud Drive

iCloud Drive is a virtual drive where you can store any sort of file you want to. It provides access to those files on any iOS device or computer that is signed into the same iCloud account with iCloud Drive turned on.

iCloud Drive FAQ - Apple Support

Get help with iCloud Drive - Apple Support

With the introduction of Sierra for the Mac, a "feature" was added that allowed you to automatically have all of your Desktop and Documents stored in iCloud Drive so that they would be able to be accessed by all of your Macs and iOS devices. Unfortunately this "feature" was "turned on" with only a little notification allowing you to opt out of that feature. Since I already knew about it, I opted out, but many people didn't even see that option, so there is a big brouhaha now because people don't like that everything is going to iCloud Drive without any control on their part. Personally, I only move or save very specific documents to iCloud Drive. The rest stays on my Mac.

Add your Desktop and Documents files to iCloud Drive - Apple Support

I pay X per month for storage so I can (seemingly) have my 10s of thousands of photos available on all devices and my Mac.

If you want all of your photos available on all of your devices and computers, then you would want to use iCloud Photo Library. If you have 10s of thousands of photos, then you need to be aware that there would be limitations as to how many of those would actually be able to be usable on every device. iCloud Photo Library provides the option of Optimizing your photos, which will dynamically size the storage availability on any device or computer using iCloud Photo Library. It will then only load as many full resolution images as your device or computer has room for at any given time, and will put the rest of the photos into a thumbnail version that you can see but which you must download to print or edit. However, there is a limit as to how much any device can hold, even if the photos are in a thumbnail version, so you need to keep that in mind.

Also, many people do not clearly understand that when they start running out of room on, say, their iPhone, even with Optimization turned on, they cannot just start deleting photos willy-nilly to make more room. Because doing that will delete the photos from the iCloud Photo Library, since you are accessing that library from every device and computer directly.

I'm logged into iCloud on all of the above. However, lately, I take a photo with iPhone 7s+ and it doesnt show up on iPad or Mac unless I hook iPhone to the Mac via USB and import using Photos. Didn't use to do that...a pic taken in phone would show up almost immediately on iPad. I've rebooted the phone, made sure I'm logged in to iCloud, I'm on same wifi network at home, but it still doesn't work. If you are using iCloud Photo Library, it can take awhile for photos to show up everywhere.

Then, when I synced my iPad in iTunes a couple days ago, it shows a large chunk of storage taken up by photo files. Huh? I thought that's why I was paying for iCloud storage so the files would be in the nebulous cloud and not taking up space on my device. Common misunderstanding of iCloud Photo Library. iCloud Photo Library is a sharing service, not an archival one. So, any device or computer using iCloud Photo Library is going to have all of the photos (either in full-res, or thumbnail versions) on them. Turning on iCloud Photo Library is turning on a two-way portal to the library between your devices and the library itself.

I don't take many photos with my iPad, so there really aren't many files that originated on the device....it doesn't make sense that image files would be taking up so much space on the iPad. But with Photos app turned on in iCloud, I can't tell whats on the device and what's in the cloud. If I delete something it says it's deleting it on all devices. I just want it off my iPad (that's how I ended up in this support page). Synching didn't help. I gave up and deleted a bunch of apps, reducing the documents and data storage amount enough to have more than 4 MB available on the iPad.

Based on what you have written above, I would recommend that you go to your Photos app on your Mac, click on Preferences>iCloud, and make sure that "Download Originals" is checked right below your iCloud Photo Library option. If it is not clicked, click that and make sure that all of your originals have been downloaded to the Mac, then turn off iCloud Photo Library on the Mac.

Then, turn off iCloud Photo Library on your iOS devices as well, but make sure that you leave Photo Stream turned on on the devices and the Mac. Also make sure you turn on iCloud Photo Sharing (link for that below).

When you turn off iCloud Photo Library, your "All Photos" sections on your iOS devices will be cleared out. But, your Memories, Shared, and Albums should all remain intact.

Once you have done that, if you want additional photos on your iOS devices, then hook them up to your Mac, and sync any albums you want on your device.

Make sure that you have Photo Stream and iCloud Photo Sharing (neither takes any of your iCloud Storage) turned on on your iOS devices (Settings>Photos) as well as on your Mac (Photos>Preferences>iCloud).

So, yeah, I've read a ******** of support pages and community forums (and Cnet, MacWorld, etc) re: Photos, as well as iTunes (sneaky of Apple to recently remove the Apps tab in an update, requiring more googling to understand *** is going on) and confusion still reigns. Apple's days of user-friendly intuitiveness are long over, the pooch has long been screwed (but they still beat other products on many fronts, hence my brand loyalty). An infographic or diagram detailing the similarities and differences of the Photos with CLEAR instuctions would be a godsend. But I'm not holding my breath.

As for iCloud Photo Sharing, it is a great tool for getting photos or albums from your Mac to your devices without having to hook your device up to your Mac directly:

iCloud Photo Sharing - Apple Support

I often will send myself little albums from my Mac to myself. It's a quick and easy way to get things to your devices (or other computers) without having to sync.

And, just so you know, any photos that were uploaded to iCloud Photo Library will still be there until you remove them, and you can access them at any time via iCloud.com. So, you can play around with different configurations until you find the one that best suits you without losing the library itself (just be sure to keep enough space available in your iCloud storage).

I use iCloud primarily for my iOS device backups, some iCloud Drive documents, miscellaneous books, and Mail. I do have some photos up there as well after my iCloud Photo Library was "accidentally" turned on by default when I was testing signing in and out of iCloud on my iOS device (eyeroll). What a nice surprise that was.... I have left them up there so I can test with them if needed. I can access and see them via iCloud.com, but I don't use iCloud Photo Library anywhere else.

So, hope that clarifies a bit. Post back with any questions, and here is a link to a user tip that I put together about iCloud that may also help: iCloud Deconstructed

Best of luck,

GB

OK, so apparently you didn't notice the dates on the posts by Randers4. They were posted in 2013.

iCloud Photo Library didn't exist in 2013. In those days, the extent of iCloud Photo support was Photo Stream.

And, also, so you know going in, iCloud Photo Library is not an archival Cloud service - i.e., it is not designed to keep your photos in a separate Library that you can access portions of via your iOS devcies. iCloud Photo Library (as are all iCloud functions and services), a sharing service, designed to share all of your data across all of your devices.

Here's a high level overview of the iCloud ecosystm that may help you to understand if it is something that would work for you: iCloud Deconstructed | Communities

In the mean time, if you are interested in learning more about iCloud Photo Library:

iCloud Photo Library Help - Apple Support

iCloud Photo Library - Photos Help

iCloud Photo Library - Getting Started

If you are most interested in storing your photos in an archival Library, where you can select certain photos or albums to reside on your iOS devices you have a couple of options;

Import your photos to your Computer's photos library, and use iTunes to sync back selected photos, albums, etc. to your device:

PHOTO IMPORT IOS TO MAC/PC

Sync your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with iTunes on your computer using USB - Apple Support

Or, look into other archival Cloud services like Dropbox, Google Photos, Amazon Photos, Flikr, etc. which are designed to archive your photos.

Best of luck,

GB

chadbrchadbr wrote:

It's the cloud - things upload to the cloud and stay in the cloud. It should work *just like every other cloud service*. Uploading it to a computer should be completely unnecessary.

It works like *every other iCloud service*

• iCloud contacts - keeps contacts synced with iCloud and other devices that share the iCloud ID
• iCloud Calendar - keeps Calendar Events synced with iCloud and other devices that share the iCloud ID
• iCloud Notes - keeps Notes synced with iCloud and other devices that share the iCloud ID
• iCloud Reminders - keeps Reminders synced with iCloud and other devices that share the iCloud ID
• iCloud Safari - keeps Bookmarks synced with iCloud and other devices that share the iCloud ID
• News - keeps News settings synced with iCloud and other devices that share the iCloud ID
• Keychain - keeps passwords synced with iCloud and other devices that share the iCloud ID
• Likewise for iBooks, Pages, Numbers, Keynote, Garage Band, iMovie, Maps
• Photos - keeps Photos synced with iCloud and other devices that share the iCloud ID

It is 100% consistent. If it treated Photos differently that would be different from all other iCloud processes.

Note that *every other cloud service* does not work the same way as every other cloud service, either. For example,

• Dropbox - delete a file from any device that shares a dropbox folder, it will be deleted from all of them
• box.com - delete a file from any device that shares a box folder, it will be deleted from all of them
• Google Drive - delete a file from any device that shares a Google Drive folder, it will be deleted from all of them
• Microsoft Onedrive - delete a file from any device that shares a Onedrive folder, it will be deleted from all of them
• Evernote - Delete a note from any device that is logged in to Evernote and it will be deleted from all

While there are cloud services that store data independently of the client devices that use them, they are the exception, not the rule.

I am now running into the same issue and like the previous poster am curious if there are new instructions for deleting photos from phone but keeping in iCloud. Ideally want to use iCloud versus Google or Amazon.

I'm with you on the "sadly" part -- not only for photos, but also for music, and basic computing. Apple has become a dinosaur in the very areas that used to make it great: user interface and leading edge tech. Google, Amazon, and even Microsoft are leaving it in the dust.

There is no photostream or cameral roll thumbnail on my macbook photos list....

I need to delete photos but want to save them somewhere (ideally automatically and not have to select specific photos).

Thank you.

That post was written 5 years ago and was responding to the way that photos and iCloud worked back then. There is nothing in that post that would make sense to a question you might have about it today. And, we are not responsible for "customer experience" here. This is a user to user technical support forum.

So, if you have a question about photos and iCloud, then please clearly state what it is, and we can provide you with current information.

GB

Ar you using Photos on the Mac? What type of Mac? What OS?

There are a lot of photo experts that may be able to help you here, but you are going to have to clearly state what Mac, what OS, what version of Photos, and what, exactly, you want to do. Also, do you have iCloud Photo Library turned on or not?

How are your photos getting to your Mac? Do you import them? From an iOS device or from a camera?

We simply have no idea what your configuration looks like, and your question provides absolutely no information that can help us to provide any guidance.

Cheers,

GB

Thank you Gail. I realize you are not Apple so very much appreciate those of you who are trying to help.

While the original post might be 5 years ago, the question is still relevant and I agree with those who said Apple has made this ridiculously difficult.

As for me, I have a 2015 MacBook Air (and one of the first iPhone 6 phones). I import to my Mac photos, but I do not want to keep my back-up photos on my Mac. It, too, is running out of space (beautiful design so I bought it-- but far behind the times in storage capacity). I would like to find a solution to keeping my photos on the cloud. So I followed the advice of someone who said use Amazon Photos-- the app appears to have seamlessly moved all my photos there.

Now I need to delete photos from my phone. Will that end up deleting them from iCloud? I want to save the ones that are on iCloud and then go through and prune them back as time permits.

Thank you,

chrisneska wrote:

I would like to find a solution to keeping my photos on the cloud. So I followed the advice of someone who said use Amazon Photos-- the app appears to have seamlessly moved all my photos there.

Now I need to delete photos from my phone. Will that end up deleting them from iCloud? I want to save the ones that are on iCloud and then go through and prune them back as time permits.

Thank you,

OK, I'm confused by your post.

You stated that you are using Amazon Photos to store your photos. So, where does iCloud come into the picture here? I

Again, iCloud Photo Library is a sharing library. It's sole intent is to provide a common place for all photos and videos to automatically upload to so that they can be automatically seen and edited using any device or computer that is also using iCloud Photo Library.

So, I'm not sure what your requirements are.

You have a phone that has photos on it.

You have a computer with some photos on it.

You use Amazon Photos to store your complete photo library.

So, you need to decide which photos in that complete photo library you want on your computer and which you want on your phone.

I don't know how Amazon Photos works, so not sure how you get photos into that library, or how you selectively put photos that are in that library back on your phone or computer, but from what I can see in their literature, you can upload photos automatically to their cloud, then safely delete them off of your device.

Cheers,

GB

Yes, Amazon Prime is now my extra backup. Still wanted to keep some on icloud. Do not want to keep on phone and computer.

So, I think when you say icloud is simply for sharing across devices, you are answering the original question-- I believe you are telling us: if you delete photos on phone, they delete on icloud too. If that's not what you are saying, then my question is: how do I delete all photos from phone and computer, without deleting them from icloud?

Thank you!