How to delete photos from your iPhone without deleting them from iCloud

By

iPhone XHollis Johnson

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.

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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 Settings on your iPhone.

2. Tap on your name (Apple ID).

3. Tap on "iCloud" (should be the first subtitle below name, security, and payment).

4. Tap on "iCloud Photos" and "My Photo Stream" so the green toggle isn’t showing – this will delete the iCloud album from your iPhone, but leave your album in iCloud intact. 

Photo Delete1.PNGRyan Ariano/Business Insider

There 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 

For this example, I’m going to use Google Photos – but there are many other cloud options you can choose from, including OneDrive, DropBox, Flickr.

1. Open the App Store and download Google Photos.

2. When you open Google Photos, it will ask for access to your camera, and various other permissions to function properly. Enable these. 

3. If you have another Google account on your phone (e.g. a Gmail app), your iPhone should be able to use this to link your phone to your Google account.

4. Your iPhone will ask you to confirm that you want to use the Google account it currently has as your default.

5. Once you tap "Confirm", it will immediately start backing up your photo album on Google Photos.

Photo Delete2.PNGRyan Ariano/Business Insider

To learn more about Google Photos, read our article, "‘How does Google Photos work?’: Everything you need to know about Google’s photo storage app for iPhone and Android." 

The 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. Tap Settings.

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.

Photo delete3.PNGRyan Ariano/Business Insider

You’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. Tap Settings. 

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.

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Source: Business Insider – feedback@businessinsider.com (Ryan Ariano)

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