gusleig
Level 1 (4 points)
Photos for Mac

Q: How to delete only photos in iCloud from my Mac

Since I installed Mac OS X Sierra, all my photos from the photos App in my iMac have been uploaded to iCloud taking all my space.

 

I would like to keep my iphone photos in iCloud but not the ones uploaded from the iMac, is this possible?

 

I mean, I already disabled the iMac upload to iCloud but to free up space now I need to delete only the photos uploaded by my iMac.

 

Any help is much appreciated.

 

Thanks

Posted on Oct 13, 2016 2:11 PM

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gusleig

Q: How to delete only photos in iCloud from my Mac

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  • Helpful answers

  • by Winston Churchill,

    Winston Churchill Winston Churchill Oct 13, 2016 2:25 PM in response to gusleig
    Level 10 (104,526 points)
    Apple TV
    Oct 13, 2016 2:25 PM in response to gusleig

    Turn iCloud photo library off on the Mac, you'll need to delete all the photos you don't want from your iCloud/phone manually but after that only photos from your phone will sync with iCloud.

  • by gusleig,

    gusleig gusleig Oct 13, 2016 2:28 PM in response to Winston Churchill
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Oct 13, 2016 2:28 PM in response to Winston Churchill

    Thanks Winston, but since I installed the Mac OS X Sierra it seems that the upload to iCloud was a default setting, I wasnt aware that 180GB of photos from my iMac have been uploaded, delete all this manually will be hard. Isn't ther another way of doing this?

  • by Winston Churchill,

    Winston Churchill Winston Churchill Oct 13, 2016 2:35 PM in response to gusleig
    Level 10 (104,526 points)
    Apple TV
    Oct 13, 2016 2:35 PM in response to gusleig

    iCloud Photo library would need to be turned on manually, if it is on you have done it accidentally. What settings do you see at Photos > Preferences > iCloud.

  • by gusleig,

    gusleig gusleig Oct 13, 2016 2:42 PM in response to Winston Churchill
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Oct 13, 2016 2:42 PM in response to Winston Churchill

    thanks again. Well, this is strange, I can't remember setting this way but anyway now I think I disabled it. The problem is to delete only the iMac photos from the iCloud since I don't want to upgrade my storage plan.

     

    Screen Shot 2016-10-13 at 18.40.46.png

  • by Winston Churchill,

    Winston Churchill Winston Churchill Oct 13, 2016 2:50 PM in response to gusleig
    Level 10 (104,526 points)
    Apple TV
    Oct 13, 2016 2:50 PM in response to gusleig

    I assume you are saying it was set to on but you've now turned it off. (It can be turned on/off in other places too)

     

    Anyway, you should now have stopped any more photos syncing from your Mac to iCloud.

     

    You say your library is 140 GB, I'm guessing from what you say your iCloud storage is less.

     

    Before going any further, can we just confirm what your iPhone settings are (settings > photos & camera)

  • by gusleig,

    gusleig gusleig Oct 13, 2016 2:53 PM in response to Winston Churchill
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Oct 13, 2016 2:53 PM in response to Winston Churchill

    In the iphone I enabled the iCloud Photo Library, also,  optimize in the iPhone is turned on.

  • by Winston Churchill,

    Winston Churchill Winston Churchill Oct 13, 2016 2:58 PM in response to gusleig
    Level 10 (104,526 points)
    Apple TV
    Oct 13, 2016 2:58 PM in response to gusleig

    And was my assumption in line one above correct.

  • by gusleig,

    gusleig gusleig Oct 13, 2016 3:05 PM in response to Winston Churchill
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Oct 13, 2016 3:05 PM in response to Winston Churchill

    UNADJUSTEDNONRAW_thumb_e53a.jpg

  • by Winston Churchill,

    Winston Churchill Winston Churchill Oct 13, 2016 3:17 PM in response to gusleig
    Level 10 (104,526 points)
    Apple TV
    Oct 13, 2016 3:17 PM in response to gusleig

    What I meant was, was it the case that you found iCloud photo library enabled when you checked on your mac and have since turned it off.

     

    I'm also a bit confused by the image above, it says it is uploading 19,000 photos, do you have 19,000 photos on your phone.

  • by gusleig,

    gusleig gusleig Oct 13, 2016 3:32 PM in response to Winston Churchill
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Oct 13, 2016 3:32 PM in response to Winston Churchill

    Well, I guess I have but the problem is that the photos from my Mac made my storage full, thats why I have so many photos in the upload queue.

  • by Winston Churchill,

    Winston Churchill Winston Churchill Oct 13, 2016 3:45 PM in response to gusleig
    Level 10 (104,526 points)
    Apple TV
    Oct 13, 2016 3:45 PM in response to gusleig

    Yeah but, here's what I don't understand... (It's important we understand what's going on before starting deleting anything)

     

    I assume all the photos were originally on your Mac only and were synced first to the cloud when iCloud photo library got enabled, they would then have been synced to your phone.

     

    Now what doesn't make sense is that your phone is now trying to sync them back to the cloud, when one would assume they were already there. Secondly, you have optimisation turned on and optimised photos can't be synced to the cloud. If they weren't optimised it would be possible to sync them to the cloud, but they would take up a lot of room on your phone, perhaps more than all but the largest capacity phone can hold.

     

    So...

    1. What size phone do you have.
    2. Have you turned iCloud photo library on and off on the phone at all.
    3. How many photos do you see at iCloud.com in your browser on your Mac.
    4. Are all the photos you should have on the mac there.
    5. Are there any photos on the phone that you want to keep that aren't elsewhere.

  • by gusleig,

    gusleig gusleig Oct 13, 2016 5:08 PM in response to Winston Churchill
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Oct 13, 2016 5:08 PM in response to Winston Churchill

    I used to sync all my photos from the phone to icloud, I think is a good features since I can save some space in the phone but I would never put my iMac photos there because I know I don't have the space, and I already have the photos in my Google Drive.

     

    My iPhone has 64GB.

     

    I think all these photos are the ones coming from the iMac that didn't synced correctly, maybe?

     

    Would be nice to delete photos coming from one specific device. I would filter the photos synced from my iMac and delete them, but I think this is impossible now.