Can I delete photos library (in documents) without deleting it on iCloud?

Hi Ivannerf,

(love the username, by the way!)

iCloud is meant to sync data between devices. Any changes you make on a source device will reflect in iCloud, and subsequently on the other devices connected.

For example:

You are on vacation and take a picture with your iPhone that has iCloud Photo Library enabled. You later connect your iPhone to wifi, those photos are uploaded to iCloud, and your Mac at home (also connected to wifi and iCloud Photo Library enabled) will then download those photos. Hence all devices will have the same photo.

That being said, a good way to delete them from your computer without them being removed from iCloud, would simply be to turn off iCloud Photo Library on your computer, and keep it off.

Turning off iCloud Photo Library will essentially prevent your computer from communicating with iCloud, also preventing photos from uploading or downloading on that device.

I hope this helps!

Shannon aka Shanigami

I wouldn't trust iCloud with the only copy of my pics, get an external drive & move the photo lib to it...

https://www.trickyways.com/2018/11/how-to-transfer-macs-photos-library-to-an-external-hard-drive-macos/

What is happen is the way iCloud is design to operate. It is a sync service between device and not a permanent storage space. When anything is delete from a device, it is also removed from iCloud.

For want you want to do iCloud is not the correctly service for you to use.