What Happens When You Delete Photos from iPhone?

Deleting photos from a phone should be an easy task. Even so, the result is not satisfactory, especially when you delete photos from your phone connected to cloud services. Many of you might have noticed that when you delete their photos on your iPhone, they disappear from iCloud. Why did this happen? And what happens when you delete photos from your iPhone? Find the answer in this post.

If you are new to cloud services, you must be wondering whether you deleted the original photo or the copy. The answer depends on many things. First, it depends on which app you use to delete photos. Apple Photos or another gallery app like Google Photos? We have covered the results of deleting photos from Apple Photos in this post.

In the Apple Photos app, the result depends on two things: whether iCloud is turned on or off. Let’s see how this will affect your photos.

What Happens When You Delete Photos From iPhone With iCloud Off?

This again depends on two things. First, if you’ve never turned on iCloud backup for photos on your current phone, deleting the photos will remove them from your phone.

However, if you have iCloud turned on before and your photos are synced with iCloud, they will only be removed from your phone if you turn off iCloud and delete the photos. However, if you enable iCloud Photos again on the same phone using the same Apple account, the photos you deleted on your phone will also be removed from your iCloud if they were synced before. This may be the reason why iCloud is deleting your photos.

What Happens When You Delete Photos From iPhone With iCloud On?

While things are simple with iCloud on, no matter what method you use to delete photos from iCloud, most people won’t like the repercussions of it.

When iCloud Photos is enabled on your iPhone and you press the delete button for a photo, the photo will be removed from iCloud and other Apple devices connected to the same iCloud account. This happens because your photos are constantly syncing with iCloud. Therefore, removing an image from one device will remove it from all of them.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to remove it from iPhone alone. Fortunately, your phone will remind you before confirming the deletion that deleting the photo from your phone will remove it from everywhere.

Fly: Do you use Google Photos on your iPhone or iPad? Learn why your iCloud photos are deleted when you delete photos from Google Photos on iPhone.

How to Recover Deleted Photos on iPhone

If you accidentally deleted some photos on your iPhone, you can easily get them back. This is possible with the help of the Recently Deleted album.

When you delete photos, they go to the Recently Deleted folder where they stay for 30 days. After deleting photos, you can get them back within 30 days. If you don’t, they will be deleted forever.

If you have iCloud Photos enabled on your iPhone, you can retrieve deleted pictures from any connected Apple device or even iCloud on the web. It is not necessary to use the same iPhone to get pictures back.

Here’s how to restore deleted pictures on iPhone.

Stage 1: Open the Apple Photos app and tap the Albums tab at the bottom. Scroll down and tap the Recently Deleted album.

Step 2: Tap Select and choose the photos you want to import. Tap on Recover.

Fly: To select multiple photos, select a photo and drag your finger over the photo to select other images and videos.

Unable to Delete Pictures on iPhone

If you can’t delete pictures from your iPhone or pictures reappear after deleting them, it may be due to iTunes. If you added these photos from iTunes, you need to sync your phone back to the computer via iTunes. Then deselect the photos to delete them from your phone. Sometimes photos from other cloud services on iPhone also cause problems.

How to Free Up Storage on iPhone without Deleting Photos

If you’re deleting photos just to free up storage space on your iPhone or iPad, there are better alternatives. Let’s check them out.

1. Enable Optimizing iPhone Storage

Known as Optimize iPhone Storage, this is a native feature provided by Apple for iCloud Photos. It saves space by replacing the original copy of the photo on your iPhone with a compressed version. This does not mean that the original photo has been deleted. It is safe and sound in iCloud Photos.

When you enable it, the feature automatically starts working when your device storage space is low. For example, if you have 50GB of photos and videos, your iPhone will only take up about 1.5-3GB using the Optimize iPhone Storage feature.

To enable it, go to Settings on your iPhone. Next, tap your name and then iCloud.

Tap Photos. If not, enable iCloud Photos. Next, tap on Optimize iPhone Storage.

2. Use the Google Photos App

Google Photos is a great alternative to iCloud Photos. It also comes with a native feature to free up storage space on your phone. If you use the Free up storage option provided by Google Photos, it won’t take up space on your phone unlike iCloud. Freeing up space is a great way to delete photos only from iPhone and not from Google Photos. You can even move your iCloud Photos to Google Photos if you like the app.

Temporarily Delete Photos

Many people delete photos from their iPhone temporarily to hide them from others. But you don’t need to do that. What if you forget to restore photos? Then they will be deleted forever. What you have to do is hide pictures using the built-in feature of the Apple Photos app.

Next: Learn how to hide photos and other tips and tricks for the Apple Photos app using the next link.