iCloud photos on phone and in Photos issue

That's not the way iCloud Photo Library works. Its goal is to keep all your devices in sync with each other and with the version in the cloud. Additions are added everywhere, changes are changed everywhere, and deletions are deleted everywhere. You have to have enough iCloud storage to hold all of your iCloud Photo Library pictures. Storage use on your devices (such as your phone) can be reduced (but not eliminated) by using the "Optimize ... Storage" option on the device.

If this is not what you want, maybe iCloud Photo Library is not the tool for you.

Can you tell us a bit more about how you are currently using iCloud Photo Library?

Is iCloud Photo Library currently enabled on your iPhone, on your Mac or both?

I have hundreds of photos and videos on my iPhone. I would like to simply have them in my Photos library on my iMac. However, when I go to delete them on my phone it tells me it will delete them from all of my devices. I believe I have everything set up to be in iCloud.

If iCloud Photo Library is only enabled on the iPhone, but not for your Photos Library on the Mac,

I would create a second, empty library on your Mac. While you are viewing this second empty library, enable it as your iCloud Library on your Mac. Wait for your iPhone pictures to download to this library. Once they have been downloaded to this second library, you can use "File > Export > Export unmodified original" to save the photos and videos in folders on your Mac. Then imort them to yur main Photos library.

Now you can safely delete the photos from your temporary download library, that you do no onger want in iCloud and your iPhone.

But if iCloud Photo Library is also enabled for your large, main Photos Library, post back. Then you need a different approach.

However, when I went back into my Photo's library to import them all only 463 out of 14,000ish would import.

Can you open the exported photos in Preview or are you getting the same error?

Where is the folder with the exported items located, on your system drive or on an external drive? Which system version is running on your iPhone and on your Mac? Which model is your Mac, and which model is the iPhone?

Perhaps the formats are not compatible.

The Mac and the iPhone should be compatible with their current sytem versions.

But perhaps the external drive has a permissions problem. Photos will have permission problems with photos that are stored on a drive, that is also used by Time Machine, or does not have the file system format MacOS Extended (Journaled) or APFS. The external drive must not have a case-sensitive format.

I'm curious also is there a way to see how many of these 14K+ photos have already been imported into my Photos?

You should be seeing the photos in the Imports album. Also, if you craete a smart album with the rule "Date added is after ..." you can see the recent imports.

Only the Desktop and the Documents folder sync with iCloud.

So you can use any other folder in your Home folder to save the photos to, for example your Pictures folder. Or create a new folder there.

Cick the little house icon in the Finder sidebar to open your user home folder.

Pearljamluvr wrote:

I have hundreds of photos and videos on my iPhone. I would like to simply have them in my Photos library on my iMac. However, when I go to delete them on my phone it tells me it will delete them from all of my devices. I believe I have everything set up to be in iCloud. But I am quickly running out of iCloud storage space and I want to free some up. I do not however, want to lose my photos and videos. How do I delete them off my phone and make sure they are still in Photos on my iMac? Thanks in advance for your help. I know this is probably and easy answer but with my memories I don't want to take a chance and do it wrong.

Set up and use iCloud Photos - Apple Support

I'm sorry. I've never been through that process.