Deleting photos from iPhone while keeping them on iCloud

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Deleting photos from iPhone while keeping them on iCloud

I have a iCloud account where my iPhone 15 plus photos all are backed up to. I have over 15,000 pictures on my phone. I do not need to have all these on the phone but do not want to lose them permanently. concert photos etc that I have qty of but don’t need on the phone all the time. Is there a way to keep them on the I cloud and I delete them from the phone. but they remain on the iCloud not the phone permanently.

Thanks for any help.

SJ

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Original Title: I cloud photos

Posted on Aug 8, 2025 06:50 PM

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Answer 1

Aug 8, 2025 06:56 PM in response to Rockvid

iCloud Photos is a sync service, so adding or deleting a photo in one place adds or deletes it everywhere.

What to do? Consider enabling optimized storage:

Manage your photo and video storage - Apple Support

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Answer 2

Aug 9, 2025 09:12 AM in response to Rockvid

As MrHoffman was saying "Optimize" lets you see all your pictures even though they take up maybe less that 20% of the storage space on your phone. Each picture will be downloaded and take up more space only if you edit, zoom, or print that picture. Very cool!

If you have pictures you don't especially want to see, and you don't want to sort through, then here's another option: Move the pictures to iCloud Drive. Select those pictures, choose Share>Save to Files, then Browse to iCloud Drive, use (•••) to create a new Folder, and save the pictures there. Now they're in two places at iCloud: in iCloud Drive and in iCloud Photos. Once you're sure they're safe in iCloud Drive, you can delete them from Photos. Because iCloud Drive is designed for files rather than for pictures, the picture files will be removed completely (perhaps as needed.) If you want to see one of them, you can go to Files>iCloud Drive and download it. You don't get all the search and editing and other organizing features of Photos, but the pictures take up no space on your phone.

What do you think?

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