Delete photos from iCloud

Hello, Team! I don´t want to share my images with the cloud anymore, and I don´t want to spend a lot of time selecting and deleting pictures from the storage. Could you please explain to me how to delete photos from iCloud in a few clicks?

Thanks,
Alicia

How do you delete photos from iCloud? This article will show you how to delete iCloud photos in 3 ways. By default, your device syncs photos to iCloud, where you have about 5 GB of free storage, which get used up quickly.

If you are uncomfortable with entrusting your photos to any cloud service, or if you simply don’t want to pay for iCloud storage anymore, this article will show you how to delete pictures from iCloud and downgrade your iCloud storage plan.

TIP: If you have Photo Stream enabled, check out this article by Apple on how to delete photos from My Photo Stream.

Don’t forget to back up your photos to PC from time to time so that you don’t lose them if something happens to your iPhone. Anyway, let’s get started!

Before you start:

How to delete photos from iCloud but not iPhone

Choose the method you prefer below:

Delete all photos from iCloud
Delete multiple photos from iCloud (not all at once)

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The quickest solution will delete your photos from iCloud in just three clicks:

Start CopyTrans Cloudly.
Log in to your iCloud.
Click on “Empty iCloud Photo Library”.

How to delete photos from iCloud

How to delete photos from iCloud but not iPhone

If you want to remove photos from iCloud but keep them on your iOS devices, make sure to disable iCloud Photos first.

Go to Settings -> Apple ID (your name at the very top) -> iCloud -> Photos -> Toggle off “iCloud Photos”.

How to disable iCloud Photos

Now, when you remove photos from iCloud, they will stay on your iPhone.

Delete all photos from iCloud

To help you mass-delete photos from iCloud, we have developed a program of our own: CopyTrans Cloudly.
🧡 What CopyTrans Cloudly can do for you:
Get CopyTrans Cloudly
Run the app. Enter your Apple ID and password.
If you have two-factor authentication enabled, please allow the connection on one of your devices and enter the code.
Wait until your iCloud library is loaded. To delete all the photos and videos from iCloud, click on “Empty iCloud Photo library”.
Confirm that you want to delete ALL your photos and videos from iCloud by ticking the checkbox.

Important: Your photos and videos will be deleted from all devices synced with the current iCloud account. To safeguard yourself against any unwanted loss, you can disable iCloud Photos on your device.
Voila! All you need to do now is wait until all your photos and videos are deleted.

We compared the strengths and weaknesses of all three methods described in this article and created a table for you to decide which one suits you best.

Makes it pretty straightforward, doesn’t it?

	CopyTrans Cloudly	iCloud.com	iOS
Deleting all photos	Deletes everything at once	Deletes only 1000 items at a time	Have to select manually
Speed	Instantly	1000 at a time	Eternity
Retrieving permanently deleted photos	Yes	No	No
Downloading all photos to PC	Yes	1000 at a time	No
Uploading photos to iCloud	Yes	1000 at a time	Only from Camera Roll
Uploading videos to iCloud	Yes	No	No
Viewing and selecting photos before deleting	No	Yes	Yes

BONUS: If you accidentally deleted files that you didn’t mean to delete, don’t panic: you can still rescue your permanently deleted photos using a little trick from CopyTrans Cloudly! Who would’ve thought?

❤ We currently have a great deal – you can get 75% off CopyTrans 7 Pack. It’s cheaper than buying just two programs 😉

Delete multiple photos from iCloud (not all at once)

Use icloud.com

👎 The biggest drawback of this method is that you can’t delete more than 1000 pictures at once.

how to delete photos from icloud storage

If you do not want to delete all the photos at once, select photos for deletion manually at icloud.com.

Go to icloud.com and log in using your Apple ID and password.
Click on “Photos”.
You will see all the photos and videos stored in your iCloud. Select the one(s) you want to delete and click on the trash bin icon.
You can also delete photos by moments. Choose a moment and click on “Select” (1). Now you can click on the trash bin icon (2) and delete the entire moment.

Use your iPhone

It is also possible to delete iCloud photos directly from your device (iPhone/iPad) if you have iCloud Photos enabled.

To make sure your iCloud Photos is enabled, go to Settings > tap on your name on the top > iCloud > Photos. The switch next to iCloud Photos should be on.
Go to your Photos app, tap “Select” in the top-right corner, and then select all the photos you want to delete.
Click on the trash bin icon in the bottom-right corner. Don’t forget to delete your photos from the Recently Deleted folder as well 🙂

How to upload photos to iCloud from PC

After you have deleted everything from iCloud, you might want to upload some photos and videos back. Not all of them, just the ones you need. CopyTrans Cloudly can do that too!

💗 What CopyTrans Cloudly can transfer for you:

Videos: upload MOV, MP4, M4V files to iCloud;

Photos: upload HEIC, JPEG, PNG images to iCloud in great numbers;

👍 After you’ve uploaded your files to iCloud, you can move or delete them from the PC folder – they will still be available in iCloud.

Here are the steps:

Instead of “Delete”, click on “Upload”;
Select the files you want to upload to iCloud.
When everything is selected, click on “Go!”;
Great! Your selected photos are now back in iCloud.

YouTube tutorial

Get CopyTrans Cloudly

Conclusion

When it comes to iCloud, you may find yourself struggling with how to delete pictures from iCloud. Now you know 3 ways of deleting iCloud photos and can delete photos from iCloud while still keeping them on your iPhone. If your data size still exceeds 5 GB, check out our tips on how to clear more iCloud storage.