Remove photos on ONE device only

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Level 1

16 points

Remove photos on ONE device only

How do I eliminate photos on one device only? I want to make more space on one iPad by not having ANY photos on it. But I don't want to lose my photos on all of my other iPads, iphone and iMac.

My iCloud settings, under photo options, show all 3 boxes checked: iCloud Photo Library; My Photo Stream; and iCloud Photo sharing. My storage is optimized but even so, I am not actually sure if all my photos 'live' on iCloud or if "Photo Streaming" means that some full sized photos live within the iPad.

What's a good approach?

1. Turn off iCloud Photo Library? If so, I don't understand the phrase 'Photos & videos which have not been fully downloaded will be removed from this iPad. Therefore I don't know which of the two options, a.) Remove from iPad b.) Download Photos & videos to choose.

2. Delete the Photo app?

I am a generally experienced user and yet this aspect of Photos and space seems unduly confusing.

Thanks for any thoughts.

iPad, iOS 9.3.1

Posted on Jan 15, 2017 6:51 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

LACAllen

Level 8

43,422 points

Jan 15, 2017 8:05 AM in response to Swampgoat

1. Turn off iCloud Photo Library? If so, I don't understand the phrase 'Photos & videos which have not been fully downloaded will be removed from this iPad. Therefore I don't know which of the two options, a.) Remove from iPad b.) Download Photos & videos to choose.

Say yes to "Remove from iPad" if you do not want your photos to be stored on that iPad. They will still be available on icloud.com and any other devices with the iCloud Photo Library enabled.

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Answer 2

Swampgoat Author

Level 1

16 points

Jan 16, 2017 12:22 PM in response to LACAllen

Thank you! Your answer is exactly right! On one of my iPads, I went to Settings > Photo & Camera and switched off iCloud Photo Library. This relinquished over 3 Gb of RAM, apparently the amount of space taken up by my 'optimized'/thumbnail photos that resided on the iPad. The photos remained on my other devices. I've since gone back to that setting and switched in back on. Voila, the photos returned.

As I said, earlier attempts to do this in the past in earlier iterations of IOS did not seem as easy and as straightforward as it turned out to be. Now it is clear and simple.

Thanks LACAllen!

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Answer 3

Eric Root

Level 10

684,105 points

Jan 16, 2017 12:11 PM in response to Swampgoat

There is no need to delete the Photo app. You may want it later.

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Answer 4

Swampgoat Author

Level 1

16 points

Jan 16, 2017 12:26 PM in response to Eric Root

This is also excellent advice, Eric. It would have been a bad mistake to delete the photo app. Besides, I would have recouped only a small amount of memory.

Thanks Eric!

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