When I delete photos from my iphone, they also delete from iCloud. Why does this happen?

[iMore Question]

I thought I was paying 99cents a month for storage of my photos on iCloud. I see them sync'd from my phone to iCloud just fine. But when I delete them from my phone to free up space and then I go look for them on iCloud, they are gone! And the little notice on my phone says that when I delete them from my phone they will be deleted everywhere. This does not make sense to me.

 

[comiken205]

iCloud is a back up to your phone. It is not to be used to save your photos. If you want to save your photos to the cloud, use other applications or services, i.e., Dropbox, Amazon Photos, Mega etc.

 

[Tartarus]

To clarify above post, you could say iCloud Photo Library is a mirror. It is a means to have your complete photo library on the iPhone uploaded to iCloud.
If you decide to delete a photo from your phone, it also gets deleted from iCloud.

What you're looking for is a standalone backup service that is only uploading your photos to the cloud, but not mirroring what you do after that.
Like, also stated in the post above me, Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, Google Photos, Box, Amazon Photos and so on and so on.

 

[Ledsteplin]

iCloud is not a storage option. It's a back up option. It backs up what is currently on your device. That's in case something happens to your device. Then you can get the photos back on another device. If you want to store photos and delete them from the device, upload them to your computer, or to services like Box and Dropbox.

 

[sandymm]

Glad I read this because just upgraded my iCloud storage so can save photos to multiple devices, etc. However, I wouldn't want to keep every photo on my phone for eternity as that would really rack up over the years and it appears that will happen? Isn't there a way around this other than another photo storage backup service? Apple should figure this out and offer a storage option rather than an all or nothing approach.

 

[tdelfie03]

I back up all my photos to google. Works well for me

 

[Ledsteplin]

Glad I read this because just upgraded my iCloud storage so can save photos to multiple devices, etc. However, I wouldn't want to keep every photo on my phone for eternity as that would really rack up over the years and it appears that will happen? Isn't there a way around this other than another photo storage backup service? Apple should figure this out and offer a storage option rather than an all or nothing approach.

Many people I know upload most photos to their computer. I use Box mostly.

 

[sandymm]

So you use google photos for this?

 

[sandymm]

Thanks!

 

[anon(4697585)]

I thought I was paying 99cents a month for storage of my photos on iCloud. I see them sync'd from my phone to iCloud just fine. But when I delete them from my phone to free up space and then I go look for them on iCloud, they are gone! And the little notice on my phone says that when I delete them from my phone they will be deleted everywhere. This does not make sense to me.

If you make sure you enable "optimise iPhone storage" photos will automatically delete from the phone but still show a 'thumbnail' copy. Which saves space

 

[tdelfie03]

So you use google photos for this?

Yes I save all my photos on google. I had a google account when I had my Motorola droid, so I just continued to use it on my iPhones.