Deleting photos from Photo stream while keeping them in an album on iPhone 15

I put about 10 photos in an album. Can I delete them from the Photo stream and they will remain in the album?

Thank you. I phone 15--ios 18


[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Original Title: Adding photos to album

iPhone 15, iOS 18

Posted on Aug 9, 2025 12:02 PM

Reply
4 replies

Aug 9, 2025 01:27 PM in response to lettyski

Apple discontinued My Photo Stream a long time ago – so it would not be possible for you to have any photos in it.


If you are referring to your Photo library, you cannot delete photos from the Library, and have those photos stay in any of your albums. The photos live in the library, and the albums are just views onto that library. Delete a photo from the library, and it will disappear from all the albums it was in, because there is nothing to be viewed any more.


That said, I believe that Photos may have a feature that lets you hide photos in the library without deleting them. [EDIT: But it appears that if you hide photos in this way, you can't include them of your other albums.]


Hide photos on your iPhone, iPad, Mac, or Apple Vision Pro with the Hidden album - Apple Support

Aug 9, 2025 04:34 PM in response to lettyski

An album is just a list of pictures from the Library that you want to see together. So pictures can be in several albums without taking up space. If you remove a picture from an album, it remains in all other albums (its name remains on the lists) and, of course, in is still in the Library. If a picture is removed from the Library, then it can't be anywhere (except in "Recently Deleted.")


Looking in the Library, you can choose to filter the view so that you see only pictures that haven't been put in an album:

To use this filter, you need to be in the Library view, which is a scroll up from the Photos view.


Does this do what you need?

Aug 9, 2025 04:57 PM in response to lettyski

lettyski wrote:

Now, is there a way to get my photos off icloud?


Do you mean copying them to somewhere else that isn't in the iCloud Photos system?


Or deleting them from iCloud Photos?


So when I delete photos from the phone, they go away from on the computer as well.


If you are using iCloud Photos, and you delete a photo anywhere, that is a request to delete it everywhere. Say your iPhone and your Mac were both using iCloud Photos for the same Apple Account. Then deleting a photo on the iPhone would delete it from iCloud and from the Mac– and vice versa.


A Mac can have multiple Photos libraries, in which case

  • The main one (the System Photo Library) can be connected to iCloud Photos (but doesn't have to be)
  • All of the other libraries are strictly local


Create additional photo libraries in Photos on Mac - Apple Support


If you wanted to have some photos on your Mac, but not on your iPhone, you could put them in (or move them to) one of the secondary, local Photo Libraries. Unfortunately, Apple does not provide a way to work with two Photos libraries at a time or to easily move photos between them.

Deleting photos from Photo stream while keeping them in an album on iPhone 15

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