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Can i delete photos from my new iphone 6 after uploading them to icloud and be able to retrieve them again?

Can I delete photos from my new iphone 6 and keep them in icloud?

iOS 8.3, new iphone 6

Posted on May 19, 2015 11:32 AM

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Posted on May 19, 2015 11:37 AM

You can save space on your iPhone, if you enable iCloud Photo Library. Then your photos will be moved to iCloud and only smaller versions stored on the iPhone, see this document:

iCloud Photo Library FAQ - Apple Support


Don't delete the photos from your iPhone, that will remove them from iCloud as well, but enable "Optimize Storage" in the Settings > Photos & Camera.

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May 19, 2015 11:37 AM in response to violajanie

You can save space on your iPhone, if you enable iCloud Photo Library. Then your photos will be moved to iCloud and only smaller versions stored on the iPhone, see this document:

iCloud Photo Library FAQ - Apple Support


Don't delete the photos from your iPhone, that will remove them from iCloud as well, but enable "Optimize Storage" in the Settings > Photos & Camera.

May 19, 2015 1:24 PM in response to violajanie

I would like to free up space on my new iphone 6 and thought i could upload to icloud and delete from my phone

iCloud Photo Library does not work this way. It keeps a small version of the photo on your iPhone, so you can browse the photo offline. But you will save space this way, since the larger, high resolution photos will be in iCloud and only the smaller versions on your iPhone. Depending on the size of your original photos the amount of storage can be reduced by a factor of ten.

You could sync the photos to iCloud, wait, till the photos have uploaded, and then sign out of iCloud and delete the photos from your iPhone. Then only your other iCloud devices can access the photos, if you have a Mac or an iPad as well.

Aug 4, 2015 6:59 AM in response to léonie

My summer vacation consists of concerts this year, so I have been taking photos and videos on my iPhone, which is now full. How do I transfer, keep these pix/videos on my cloud and/or Mac, and delete them from my iPhone for future pix and videos? I used to be able to download from my phone to Mac, and delete the imported files from my phone. That option went away. What good is the cloud, I f you have to keep a (reduced size, but still memory-taking) copy on each device you use to take the picture? Add in Family Share, and you can see how that is a lot of memory wasted in just one family of 4.


The option to turn iCloud off and then delete the iPhone pix probably will wipe those pix off the cloud when you turn the cloud back on on your iPhone? Again not a very useful application of the cloud.

Aug 4, 2015 8:30 AM in response to GadgetMom65

What good is the cloud, I f you have to keep a (reduced size, but still memory-taking) copy on each device you use to take the picture? Add in Family Share, and you can see how that is a lot of memory wasted in just one family of 4.

iCloud Photo Library is meant to manage the storage for you. If you use it, forget about storage. iCloud is supposed to free the storage automatically, if the device fills up.

But if you want to manage the storage yourself, disable iCloud Photo Library and save all photos to your Mac like you did before.

Dec 29, 2015 11:18 AM in response to GadgetMom65

I've got a similar problem as @GadgetMom65, I have a Mac where I had iCloud Photo Library turned on, used with the Photos app. But this is a work machine and I no longer want my photos on that machine. The problem is, even though I have turned off iCloud Photo Library, all the photos (nearly 5,000 of them) are still in Photos. Even though I'm "offline", I'm deathly afraid of deleting all the photos because if iCloud Photo Library ever gets turned on again on this machine (intentionally or accidentally), that means it would sync the deletions of all my photos back to iCloud, effectively wiping out all my photos everywhere.


Is that correct? How can I delete all the photos off this one machine with no danger of them being deleted from iCloud Photo Library in the future if a sync takes place?

Can i delete photos from my new iphone 6 after uploading them to icloud and be able to retrieve them again?

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