Deleting photos off of phone but not off of cloud

So, not exactly right. iCloud Storage that you purchase is used for a multitude of things such as:

iCloud Drive documents

iOS Device Backups

iCloud Photo Library

It is virtual drive space that you are renting in order to take advantage (to the extent that you desire), the services provided by iCloud itself.

iCloud Photo Library is a shared library that uses iCloud space to house a full-resolution Photo Library that can then be used to share with all devices and computers that you wish. If you set up those devices/computers to Optimize storage, only the number of full-resolution photos from that library will be available based on the amount of memory available on the device or computer. The remaining photos would be housed as "Thumbnails" that you can download to full-res mode by tapping on them (and presuming you have enough room to do so).

So, the "storage" that you are paying for is virtual disk storage that is provided in various increments by Apple. This virtual drive is intended as a "spoke" which connects all of your devices and computers to a set of centralized data.

iCloud storage was never intended as a permanent storage environment. So, again, if you are looking to protect your photos to ensure that they fully protected, then they should be in an archival file (not a working one, which iCloud Photo Library is). In addition, a backup of those photos on a separate media would also be a great ides.

Cheers,

GB

I agree, this is extremely sitting in disappointing. I had no idea that it was not a storage thing and agree it's completely worthless to have it if it doesn't store anything or allowing to delete things off of my phone . But at least i understand now, I will certainly not be buying any more iCloud space. 😡And I'll have to get over deleting all those precious baby pics.

Apple did not "dupe" you into thinking anything of the sort. If you bother to read any of the literature regarding iCloud functionality and services, you will see that it has been sold as a cloud-based sharing service.

You were not duped, just uninformed. Next time, take a little time to read about what something does before you jump in with all sorts of assumptions of what it is supposed to do in your mind, but which may have little bearing on reality.

And it sounds like you shouldn't be using iCloud at all for your photos unless you want to share with some devices but not others. What is wrong with importing them to your photo library on your computer?

GB

emcoquet wrote:

no space on computer - used it up ages ago -

Then purchase some cloud storage solution. This isn't rocket science. When you need a product, you research the various ones available, and then you find the one that best meets your needs. iCloud obviously is not the solution you need, since it is not storage solution.

So, you have now clearly stated your requirements - you need a cloud-based storage solution. There are tons out there - I'm sure you can find one that meets your needs. But again, you selected one that was not designed to meet the needs you have defined. Sorry....

GB

The joy of Apple stuff is when it 'just works', and often it does. To my mind that means not having to work out that 'more storage' means 'more syncing space' or something like that. I think Apple recognise that with their attempt to 'optimise storage' on the iPhone, unfortunately this does not currently work well enough. On my phone the optimised storage takes up nearly 2Gb and tends to free up 50 Mb or so at a time, allowing me to take 1 or 2 pics before getting full again.

So so this does not seem to be working well enough for the customer (why not choose an algorithm to aim for 1 Gb of free space). The cynical side of me wonders whether Apple has much incentive to improve this as it works as a customer incentive to buy equipment with more storage....

just my tuppence worth

So, what is the solution. What I hear everyone asking is "how/where do I save my photo's and videos so that I dont lose them while I delete the pictures and videos from my iphone/ipad. Should they all be saved to a external drive? The users thought iCloud Drive operated llike an external drive. But, since it doesn't, what is the storage solution that keeps all image data for future recall and enables one to be able to delete their devises.

Okay, this seemed to work for me.... so far anyway

First, check that all photos on your iPhone are stored in Photos app on mac and back up the photos library, just in case.... - that way you won't lose the photos if anything goes wrong.

Next, turn off iCloud storage for photos on iPhone

Then delete the photos from your phone (remember to clear the deleted photos folder as well)

When I did this the photos then remained in iCloud.

.....

you now have got rid of photos from your phone but they remain in the iCloud. However new photos will no longer be uploaded.

What I did next was to turn iCoud for photos back on again (making sure I chose the 'optimise' option) so new photos you take will still be uploaded. images from the iCloud are then available again on your phone but in the process a lot of space has been freed up.

Not perfect but seems to have freed up space for me

good luck...

THANK YOU :)

FINALLY, a clear answer. I can't believe I had to read every post until page 5 to get a simple answer. I don't want photos on my iPad. I could not figure out how to isolate my iPad to safely delete the pics ONLY FROM MY iPad.

You are most welcome! Glad that was helpful!

When I looked at the post you were responding to, I realized that I said to turn off "iCloud Photo Stream" instead of "iCloud Photo Library" on the device you want to sync photos manually to. I'm glad that didn't confuse you, but apologize for the "typo", if you will. 😟

Glad you are all set now, however 🙂 YAY!

GB

I concur I bought a brand new MacBook Air that is now full and basically slow & bogged down because my 40,000+ photos transferred over to it. Not cool. Trying Google Photos and an external hard drive

edutainer2 wrote:

I concur I bought a brand new MacBook Air that is now full and basically slow & bogged down because my 40,000+ photos transferred over to it. Not cool. Trying Google Photos and an external hard drive

The speed of the computer has nothing to do with how many photos it has or how full the drive is. Google Photos is excellent. An external drive is also a good solution.

I was just looking for an answer to The same question regarding deleting photos in your photo stream,but don't want to delete them off of your storage or iCloud storage. So if possible, what do indeed to do ?

Truly,

Ellen joy

iCloud Photos syncs photos across all devices that are using it. So you cannot delete a photo from one device (iPhone, iPad, computer, etc) and leave the photo on other devices.

If you don't want the photos on all devices you need to use a different service, such as Google Photos, as suggested by several people in this thread.

This is artfully designed so that when you buy your next device you will pay the extra $300 for the $30 worth of device memory. Apple is not as stupid as this iCloud photo storage design might indicate.

Now that you have all confirmed what I could simply not believe was the case, I will get off the worthless iCloud.

This iPad keeps telling me is that I’m low on storage. I have removed just about everything, and I refuse to lose my photos. So, no more photos in iCloud. And maybe an Android or two.

It is artfully designed for ONE function - to sync photos across all of your devices. If that is not your objective you should be using another means of photo management. The iCloud Photos documentation is perfectly clear on that; it even says it on the page in iOS where you enable it.

The rest of your post is so full of misinformation it is laughable.

I think you should get an Android, as you are so unhappy with your iPhone. Neither I nor anyone else in this forum cares what you get. You should always get equipment that best meets your needs and desires.