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I need to put all my photos and videos in my iCloud to free up space on my device

How do I free up space on my iPhone by putting all my photos and videos in iCloud

iPhone 13, iOS 15

Posted on Mar 7, 2023 7:51 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Mar 8, 2023 8:27 AM

There isn't an option in iCloud Photos to put photos and videos in iCloud and completely eliminate them from a device. The closest option to that is the Optimize Storage option.


iCloud Photos is a syncing service. Any photo you delete from a device where iCloud Photos is turned on will also be deleted from iCloud and from any other device connected to iCloud Photos. You can potentially reduce the storage space required on a device by turning on Optimize Storage. See the following Apple article for more information: Set up and use iCloud Photos - Apple Support


Apple does not currently offer cloud-only storage for photos. If that is what you want or need, you may want to explore 3rd party options such as Google Photos or Dropbox.


Another way that photos may be on iCloud (if you don’t have iCloud Photos turned on) is via a backup of an iOS device. The only thing you can do with a backup is use it to restore a device or set up a new device. The contents of backups are not viewable at iCloud.com and if you delete a photo from a device it will not be included in future backups and will be lost.



1 reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Mar 8, 2023 8:27 AM in response to Gotime4600

There isn't an option in iCloud Photos to put photos and videos in iCloud and completely eliminate them from a device. The closest option to that is the Optimize Storage option.


iCloud Photos is a syncing service. Any photo you delete from a device where iCloud Photos is turned on will also be deleted from iCloud and from any other device connected to iCloud Photos. You can potentially reduce the storage space required on a device by turning on Optimize Storage. See the following Apple article for more information: Set up and use iCloud Photos - Apple Support


Apple does not currently offer cloud-only storage for photos. If that is what you want or need, you may want to explore 3rd party options such as Google Photos or Dropbox.


Another way that photos may be on iCloud (if you don’t have iCloud Photos turned on) is via a backup of an iOS device. The only thing you can do with a backup is use it to restore a device or set up a new device. The contents of backups are not viewable at iCloud.com and if you delete a photo from a device it will not be included in future backups and will be lost.



I need to put all my photos and videos in my iCloud to free up space on my device

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