- You can delete photos from your iPhone but keep them in iCloud by turning off iCloud photo sharing.
- You can also use a different iCloud account to keep the previous account's iCloud photos safe.
- Another workaround is to use a different cloud server to back up the photos before deleting them on your iPhone.
Apple's iCloud allows you to share photos across devices, while also giving you an automatic backup should something happen to your iPhone.
For these reasons, the iCloud's memory is more permanent and preserved better than the memory on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac.
However, the connectivity between iPhone and iCloud means that if you delete a picture on your iPhone, it's also scrubbed from iCloud.
Luckily, there are a few workarounds that allow you to delete photos from your iPhone yet keep them in the cloud in perpetuity.
How to delete photos off your iPhone without deleting them from iCloud
The easiest way to do this is by simply turning your iCloud backup off.
Turn off iCloud photo sharing
1. Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
2. Tap on your name (Apple ID).
3. Tap on iCloud.
4. Tap on Photos.
5. Tap the toggle next to iCloud Photos to turn it off (it will go from green to gray).
Turn off iCloud photo sharing. Stefan Ionescu6. If Optimize iPhone Storage is enabled, you'll see an option asking if you want to transfer a copy of the iCloud Photos folder onto your phone. You can choose either Remove from iPhone or Download Photos & Videos, but no matter what you choose, the iCloud originals will remain intact.
Choose whether you want to copy the iCloud Photos folder to your phone. Stefan IonescuThere is a drawback to this method: If you reconnect your photos to iCloud, it will update to match your phone, deletions and all. If you want a more permanent cloud backup for your photos, use a different cloud server.
Use a server other than iCloud for photo backup
The example below will use Google Photos – but there are many other cloud options you can choose from, including OneDrive, DropBox, and Flickr.
1. Open the App Store and download Google Photos.
2. When you open Google Photos, it will ask you for access to your photo gallery, so tap Allow access to all photos.
3. You'll then see a pop-up asking you for access to your photo gallery again. Tap Allow Access to All Photos.
4. On the next pop-up, decide whether you'd like Google Photos to send you notifications or not.
5. If you have more than one Google account on your phone, choose the account you want to back up the photos to and then tap on Back up as [name of Google account].
6. Choose the image quality of your backups: Storage saver or Original quality. The former reduces the size of the images by reducing their quality, while the latter stores them in their original size and quality – choose the option that best suits your needs.
7. Scroll down and tap Confirm, and Google Photos will start backing up your images.
Confirm that you want to backup your photos to Google Photos. Stefan IonescuThe last option is best used if you want to keep a running iCloud sync to your iPhone, but also want to keep a separate iCloud account with all your previous photos.
Sign out of your current iCloud account, and sign into another one
1. Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
2. Tap on your name (Apple ID).
3. Scroll down to the very bottom and tap on Sign Out. It will ask you to authenticate that you want to sign out.
Sign out of the current iCloud account. Stefan IonescuYou'll be asked which data you wish to keep on your iPhone after you sign out.
Now, you can sign into a separate iCloud account:
1. Open the Settings app.
2. Tap on the Apple ID subheading.
3. It'll ask for your iCloud sign-in. Whatever iCloud account you use to sign back in will now be your synced iCloud account.
Ryan Ariano grew up in Baltimore when the Macintosh was cutting edge, lived in Los Angeles as Blackberries gave way to iPhones, and now lives in Jackson Hole where his life is held together by Bluetooth. He writes on a wide range of topics but especially loves nerding out across the tech spectrum. Learn more about how our team of experts tests and reviews products at Insider here.
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