Can I delete photos from my iPhone and have them remain in iCloud Photo Library?

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Level 1

6 points

Can I delete photos from my iPhone and have them remain in iCloud Photo Library?

I have about 3 thousand pictures and videos on my phone (mainly from vacations because I only use my iPhone camera). I currently have my library synced with iCloud Photo Library. What I really want is to be able to delete the majority of my photos off of my phone so I can have more storage on my phone, but I don't want to lose any of my photos from iCloud. Currently I believe that if I delete something from my phone it will also be removed from the iCloud Photo Library. I don't have any other Apple devices, so I really have no need for the sharing feature of iCloud Photo Library, I really just need it to store photos from my phone. Ideally my phone would still automatically update new photos to iCloud Photo Library, but the photos in the iCloud wouldn't get deleted unless I did it through the iCloud.

iPhone 5c, iOS 9.0.1

Posted on Oct 4, 2015 12:07 PM

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Answer 1

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Winston Churchill

Level 10

122,487 points

Oct 4, 2015 1:26 PM in response to asmith815

Welcome to the Apple Community.

With iCloud Photo Library enabled, you cannot delete a photo on one device (or at iCloud.com) without deleting it from every device that uses iCloud photo library (and iCloud.com). In order to save space on your mobile devices (and indeed your Mac if you wish to do so) turn on optimisation for photos on these devices (settings > photos & camera > optimise storage on your mobile device and Photo preferences > optimise storage on your Mac)

Optimisation is dynamic, it reduces the resolution of your photos as and when needed, so you may not notice it occurring at first. However when it is needed, it is very effective and users have reported libraries being optimised to much less than 10% of their original size in some cases. My own library is about 9% of its original size on my phone.

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