Hello! How can I delete photos from my iPhone and still keep them on my mac? I use iCloud and have about 50GB of Photos on my phone. My plan is bigger than that but I still don't want to have that many pictures on my iPhone (but keep them on my mac) . Is that possible? I tried importing them to my Mac but it won't show me all the pictures have on my phone. It shows me about 3000 instead of 11000...TIA
iPhone 6, iOS 9.3.2, Also Mac
This from April 27 2016 might, unfortunately, be the the bottom line:
yep you nailed it ... that's all we want ...
I agree, the response does not answer the question!!! The only reason I would pay for the iCloud is to allow me to delete photos on the road and know they were safe somewhere. By requiring me to plug in to my Mac, it defeats the purpose of the cloud storage.
Is this possible with Apple or not?
My only suggestion is to use a non Apple storage site.
If you go to Settings > Photos & Camera > turn "icloud Photo Library" to off > you should receive a prompt for two options. click "remove from iphone" the pictures should delete from iphone within 2-5min. If they don't open and close Photos to refresh the app.
once photos are deleted you can now turn "icloud Photo Library" back on and new photos you take will upload to your icloud and be added to your collection past.
This worked for me on iOS version 10.2 on an Iphone 5s
If your photos don't delete from your iphone after this you may need to delete them manually.
Ensure you have "icloud Photo Library" turned off when deleting from Iphone.
also Open www.icloud.com on a computer go to photos section to ensure while deleting photos from your iphone they are not disappearing from your Icloud. Refresh the webpage every now and then just to be safe.
I do not know how this effects photos in iphoto library on a Mac as I only use www.icloud.com to store pictures.
Hope this helps.
My solution is to use iCloud Photo Library on my iPhone, but not on my MacBook. Instead, in Photos on the MacBook, I turn on My Photo Stream. After taking pictures on my iPhone, I make sure that photo stream has copied the pictures over to the MacBook (this should happen as long as you use your MacBook frequently and have it connected to the Internet). Once that's done, I am able to delete photos on my iPhone, and they will still be present in Photos on the MacBook.
The only problem with this solution is that if you want to access the photos in your icloud library from your phone (surely the main purpose to storing them in the cloud), then you will have to turn on the icloud photo library on your phone and its then almost certain your phone will download your library photos to your phone. Google has a far better solution to this, and the storage is free. your phone keeps no photos on it but your google photo library is available as long as you have a connection.
Thanks! This worked! iPhoto Library on my Mac retained the photos, while they were deleted on my iPhone. Need to let all the deleting/updating to complete before switching back on "sharing."
see jamesfromma post for solution.
Didn't Work! Al the photos repopulate as soon as sharing is turned back on! Come on, Apple. Fix this!
Apple is not going to "fix" this, as I don't think they see it as broken. Their concept is that your cloud photo library be mirrored on every device you set to share your library. in iOS10 there is a setting allowing you to keep only a "low-res" copy on your phone thereby freeing up space, but it is beyond Apple's purpose to eliminate your library on one particular device
they *got* this wrong...
There is no way to get this to happen. i don't understand how this is not a standard feature with iCloud.
I made a switch to Google Photos. Works a treat.
Delete photos on iPhone, keep on mac using ICloud?
