liz from roanoke
Level 1
(4 points)
Q: Moving photos to iCloud Photo Library
I just activated iCloud Drive and iCloud Photo Library on my iPhone and ipad because my phone storage is almost full. I backed up both devices and was expecting to see all my photos when I touched the iCloud app I added to both home screens, bit nothing is there on either device. How can I move existing photos to the library, and can I delete them from the devices once they are there?
iPhone 6s, iOS 9.3.4
FoxFifth
Level 7
(25,885 points)
iCloud Photo Library syncs your photos from your device to iCloud. You continue to view them as you always did -- in the Photos apps on the iPhone and iPad. You can also use a computer and log in https://www.icloud.com/ and view them in the Photos app there. They are not a part of iCloud Drive which is another area or service of iCloud that you can also view at https://www.icloud.com
Note that if you have iCloud Photo Library turned on in your iPhone and iPad and you delete any photo it will also be deleted from iCloud and from both of your devices. iCloud Photo Library is not designed to be a cloud-only storage solution -- it is designed to sync your photos to all of your devices. You can potentially reduce the storage space required on the iPhone/iPad by turning on Optimize Storage on the Settings > iCloud > Photos screen.
Also you commented that you "backed up" your devices -- that is not related to turning on iCloud Photo Library (i.e., you don't need to do a backup for the photos to sync to iCloud) and also note that once you turn on iCloud Photo Library that your photos are no longer included in backups to iCloud.
Apple does not currently offer any cloud-only photo storage service for your iPhone or iPad where you can delete the photos from the phone. There are 3rd party options for that. One of them that I believe has an option for that is Dropbox.
More information on iCloud Photo Library: iCloud Photo Library - Apple Support
