Deleting photos off of phone but not off of cloud

Wow you are being so rude! Like these people I did not understand how ICloud works which leads me to believe that apple didn't explain it well to begin with! I'm trying to figure out how to create more storage without deleting my pictures and the apps I wish to keep! I thought that the pics went to iCloud and then you could delete them from the iphone and free up storage. I see now that that is not the case! So where can I put my pics so I don't lose them? And how can I free up storage without deleting all my apps?

I have been wondering about this as well and haven't been able to get a straight answer.

Here's what I understand:

1. When you delete a photo from your Photos app (after enabling iCloud Library and syncing all your photos/videos in the cloud), it deletes from the iCloud Library and NOT ONLY on your iPhone.

2. There is no current option to delete on your iPhone ONLY and leave the photo/video in your iCloud Library (i.e. you can't sync and delete like you can with services like Dropbox, Google Photos, etc).

If this is the case, then this defeats the idea that everyone has that iCloud Library is a place that you can upload your photos/videos to and clear space on your iPhone. Makes me even wonder what's the point of purchasing additional storage, as you technically are not clearing space on your phone and its just duplicating the across iCloud and your phone.

Please correct me if I am wrong on the above.

Regarding your points:

(1) True.

(2) True.

(unnumbered) Partially true.

As I said above,

"If your photo library is using too much space on your phone, you can enable "Optimize iPhone Storage" in Settings > Photos & Camera. Then the phone will keep every photo, but if your phone gets full it will reduce the resolution of the phone's copies until you need the full resolution of a photo (e.g., to edit it or to blow it up to view details). For example, my photo library is currently using less than 1/3 of the space on my phone as on iCloud (which always keeps the full resolution), and only half that much on my iPad Air (which has less hardware storage)."

[emphasis added]

I also have this problem (and did not understand iCloud storage properly until reading this thread). My solution was to buy an external hard drive and download all of my photos to it so that I could immediately improve my phone's functioning. However, when I tried to access a photo from this hard drive, I received a message that the photo was in an incompatible format and could not be opened. ?? I immediately undeleted all my photos from my Recently Deleted folder until I could figure this out. What I want is a local, secure place to have my digital photos and videos - like an external hard drive. Why was this not possible? Thanks.

and download all of my photos to it so that I could immediately

What format are they saved in?

I received a message that the photo was in an incompatible format and could not be opened.

What application are you using when you get this message?

genealogistcarol wrote:

Then why should I pay for iCloud storage if it isn't really storage!?

It is really storage. It allows you to keep every photo in full resolution in the cloud while optionally keeping lower-resolution versions on your devices to reduce (but not eliminate) the on-phone storage required by those photos. It also allows you to put those photos onto any new devices you get later.

Thank you. I do understand what you are saying. My problem is my iPhone and iPad keep telling me I'm on overload and need to manage my content. So what do I do? Throw away pictures, eliminate little used apps, buy a bigger iPad or iPhone? I guess those are the answers.

Just to be clear, you have already enabled "Optimize iPhone Storage" in Settings > Photos & Camera on both your iPhone and your iPad, yet you are still getting the messages on both devices? What is the exact message?

Maryk4147 wrote:

Yes I did, after that I couldn't access my photos from my phone.

I was asking genealogistcarol about her comment from this morning, but we can go back to yours.

What you mean "couldn't access [your] photos"? What happened when you tried? Your last comment said "I purchased the 200 G as well. It hasn't freed up my phone as it said it would in the warning about my storage being low." No mention of not being able to access photos.

Maryk4147 wrote:

I did both, optimize and subscribed to more storage.

When I go into my camera roll, none of the new photos show up. That's when I decided to subscribe.

Where are these new photos coming from, and where are you expecting to find them? How many devices are involved? What are the settings and status on each?

When you say "my camera roll," do you mean the "Photos" view (leftmost icon at the bottom of the screen) or something else? Devices with iCloud Photo Library don't have a place named Camera Roll.

My photos are on my phone with iCloud Photo Library, I also have a Mac connected to the cloud. If I can see the photos on my Mac does that mean the photos are also downloaded locally to the Mac? i.e. photos are stores on my phone, iCloud, and Mac?

Hatsofsals wrote:

My photos are on my phone with iCloud Photo Library, I also have a Mac connected to the cloud. If I can see the photos on my Mac does that mean the photos are also downloaded locally to the Mac? i.e. photos are stores on my phone, iCloud, and Mac?

Yes, at least to some degree. They will be stored in full resolution in iCloud Photo Library. At least thumbnails will be stored on the other devices if "Optimize Mac Storage" (or "Optimize iPhone Storage") is selected. If "Download and Keep Originals" is selected on your phone or Mac, then that device will have full-resolution originals stored there.

I'm very very disappointed with this - I didn't used to use iCloud as it's a pain - but I felt compelled to get it as was constantly being urged to up my 'storage' as my new phone seemed to have it turned on and I didn't want to lose photos but when my phone is full it works badly - so I purchased extra 'storage space'

but no it is not 'storage space' it is a place to put stuff in fancy folders I don't need - nor to access my photos from all my devices - I just wanted 'storage'

but now i've lost a load of photos because of this scam by apple

can I cancel my subscription please - it's worth f all

I was also under the same misconception. To me, "more storage" meant more room to permanently store my photos, not more room to make them available on all of my devices at the same time. I was surprised to learn that deleting them off my phone also deleted them off my computer. That was not why I purchased more "storage". I am still working on solving this issue. In the meantime, a helpful suggestion from an Apple Genius Bar employee was to delete photos and videos from text messages. It turned out that a lot of my phone's storage was being eaten up by these copies of photos and videos, not the original. I had come to use my camera as a notepad and, as such, was using up a lot of storage with photos and videos I no longer needed to keep. Going through texts and deleting these has helped the situation for now. If you open a text message and click on the little "i" at the top right, you will have easy access to all photos and videos you have sent that person. Hold your finger down on one you want to delete until the pop up appears, choose "More" and then you can select multiple images/videos to delete all at once. As for your lost photos, remember that if it has been less than 30 days since they were deleted, they will still be in your Recently Deleted folder. Hope this is helpful.

So iCloud 'storage' is a really iCloud 'synchronization' mislabeled? I too find this more than a little misleading. So am I right in thinking that 10gb of photos on one device actually uses up 10gb on all devices? Having an iMac, MacBook Pro, iPad and iPhone - that's 40gb of storage for 10gb of photos? Surely that can't be right!