Q: Photos won't permanently delete
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May 3, 2016 9:44 PMby StingFish76,So if the pictures that are uploaded to iCloud from all your devices are still getting back on your Mac, you would go into either:
1. System Preferences>iCloud>Photos (turn this off and "iCloud Photo library")
2. Photos>Preferences>iCloud and turn off "iCloud Photo library"
If you had these on and deleted pictures from the photo app on the Mac, they would re-appear, yes.
But it sounds like you are stating that you have turned off iCloud Photo library for the Mac, then deleted the pictures from the Photos app.... yet, they somehow still get back on your Mac after doing this.
Is that correct?
Make sure you do it as listed above:
1. Turn off iCloud Photo library on the Mac first
2. delete the pictures you do not want on the Mac's Photos app.
This should stop the re-download of those pictures coming from your iCloud account.
Double check that you have done it this specific way. If the pictures are deleted from the Mac after turning off iCloud Photo library on the Mac, it's all you should have to do because it kills the iCloud Photo Library from syncing back on your Mac.
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May 3, 2016 11:38 PMby vgtblzz,Thanks for the reply!
I still had iCloud library turned on while it was happening, because I was hoping to have the entire Photos library synced with my phone and ipad (with 'store and download originals on my Mac' setting enabled). But seems like it is impossible with the current status of syncing? I would spend an afternoon deleting photos on the Mac, only to find the next day that they had reappeared from iCloud instead of 'deleting on all devices.'
And yes, woops, got my operating system wrong. I'm not on Mountain Lion, I'm on El Capitan.
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May 3, 2016 11:42 PMby vgtblzz,So am I understanding that there is actually no way to ever delete photos once they make it into my iCloud? In that case, should I:
1. turn off syncing
2. completely organize the library on the Mac
3. delete everything from the iCloud
4. turn syncing back on and reupload the entire library again, but with edits already made?
Is it impossible to delete a photo forever when syncing is enabled?
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May 4, 2016 12:16 AMby StingFish76,Each device has it's own pictures on the device. For each device you have, you can turn on iCloud Photo Library and it uploads the pictures from that device to your iCloud account.
If I turn on iCloud Photo Library on all devices, then all pictures from each device get uploaded to my iCloud account. Also with iCloud Photo library enabled on each device, all pictures from each device upload to my iCloud account, then sync (download) to all devices.
If I don't want this for my Mac, I turn off iCloud Photo Library on my Mac. Same goes to the other devices.
There is a way to delete pictures from my iCloud account. You simply go to iCloud.com, sign in with the Apple ID you're using on the Mac, iPad and iPhone. Once logged in, you can click on the Photos category. That will show you what pictures you uploaded to your iCloud account from each device you turned on the iCloud Photo Library feature.
Deleting from iCloud.com >Photos will get rid of the picture that's being synced across all devices.
Let's say you get another brand new Mac added to the Apple devices you already have. For all the pictures you have in your iCloud account.... if you turn on iCloud Photo Library in the Photos app on this new Mac, it's going to sync (download) all the pictures that you already have in your iCloud account on to your new Mac. Remember, it's because you just turned on iCloud Photo Library on this new Mac.
