How To Delete Photos On Mac Without Deleting From iPhone [5 EASY STEPS!]
Photos are treasures for many people, but sometimes there isn’t enough storage space on your Mac to keep all of your treasured photos. If your MacBook and iPhone use the same Apple ID, you may notice images deleted on your Mac, disappearing on your iPhone.
To delete the photos from a Mac without removing them from an iPhone, turn off iCloud syncing capabilities. After disconnecting iCloud, delete the unwanted photos on the Mac. With iCloud disconnected, the photos will remain on the iPhone using the same Apple ID.
Since photos are precious momentos, you want them saved on at least one device. Keep reading to learn how to delete photos on a Mac without deleting them from your iPhone.
Deleting Photos on a Mac without Deleting on iPhone
No one wants to lose their precious memories because of a silly iCloud syncing. to prevent this from happening, you’ll need to disconnect your MacBook from the iCloud upload. You can follow these steps to do so:
- On your Mac, open the Photos app
- Click on Preferences
- Go to the iCloud tab
- Next to photos, there is a checkmark. Click on it to uncheck it.
- When asked if you want to delete photos from your Mac, click yes. The photos will stay in the cloud, even after you delete them from your Mac. This will keep the images on your iPhone, as well as any other devices that they were uploaded to.
The settings tab may be called System Preferences, but the process is the same. However, before you start deleting photos from your Mac, you need to know how to do so.
Before you change the iCloud settings on your Mac, notify anyone else who uses this computer. If they’re unaware of the setting changes, they may turn the iCloud settings back on, leading to deleted photos on your iPhone.
If your Mac and iPhone are not connected to the same Apple ID, the photos you delete on your Mac won’t be deleted from your iPhone, even if an iCloud account is connected to both devices and turned on.
How to Delete Photos on Mac
After you turn off iCloud connectivity to the photos on your Mac, you can delete all the photos you want to without deleting them from your iPhone.
How to Delete Photos on Mac:
- Go to Mac Library folder
- Go to All Photos
- Right-click on the photo you want to delete
- Select Delete
If you want to delete multiple photos, hold down the Command key while you left-click on all of the photos you want to delete. Once all of the photos have been selected, right-click and press delete on the pop-up menu. You can also continue holding the command key and drag the selected images to the trash icon in bottom right corner of the screen.
If you only want to delete photos from an album, select the photos, control-click, and click on Remove from Album. The photos will still be in your photo library so you can still see them.
Deleted images will remain in the recycling bin (called “trash” on a Mac) until it is cleared out. Do this frequently to free up space on your computer.
Will Photos be Deleted on iPhone When iCloud is On?
The photos that you have deleted from your Mac may be removed from your iPhone if you turn iCloud syncing for photos back on.
However, because the photos were deleted when iCloud was turned off, what will likely happen is the photos on your phone that you removed from your Mac will be put into your photo library again. However, this will only occur if you turn on iCloud syncing on your Mac back on after you have deleted photos.
These previously deleted photos will only appear on the iCloud system, which connects to your Mac’s photo library. The actual photos won’t be on your Mac, so they won’t take up storage space. You may not even notice that the photos were re-added.
If you don’t want the photos you deleted on your Mac to come back after you turn iCloud syncing back on, you will have to keep it off or delete the photos from your iPhone after you are done with them.
Other Backup Photo Services
If you don’t want the photos on your iPhone to automatically upload to your Mac, you can use backup services other than iCloud to backup your phone’s photos. However, you will have to keep iCloud off on your Mac.
The following services backup your photos:
- Amazon Photos
- Google Photos
- DropBox
- Adobe Creative Cloud
If you have an Amazon Prime account, you automatically have an Amazon Photos account that you can use, even if you haven’t signed up for it. Why not use what comes with your Amazon Prime membership?
With Amazon photos, you get 5 GB of storage space for free. It is easy to go online or onto the app and delete photos you no longer want to have saved. If 5 GB of storage space isn’t enough for all your photos, you can purchase more for a monthly subscription. Amazon photos costs between $2-$20 per month.
Google photos allows you to store 15 GB of photos and videos on the server for free. After the 15 GBs are full, it costs between $2-$9 per month for more storage space. You can access the photos and videos you store on the server on any device as long as you are signed in to the Google account associated with it.
Most companies that have cloud-based servers allow you to store photos and videos on their server with no extra charge. However, they only allow you to use a few GB for free. Before you decide which server to store your photos on, find out what their prices and features are.
It is possible to delete photos on your Mac without deleting them from your iPhone. Luckily for you, it is really easy to do. You just have to remember to turn the iCloud settings back on when you want to have photos taken on your phone on your computer.
If you are running out of space on your Mac, turning off iCloud syncing and deleting your downloaded photos is a great way to make some room, especially if you have many photos that are stored on both your Mac and your iPhone because of iCloud.