What Happens When You Delete Photos from iPhone

Deleting a photo from a phone should be an easy task. Even if this is the case, the result is not satisfactory, especially when you delete photos from your phone connected to cloud services. Many of you may have noticed that your photos disappeared from iCloud when you deleted them on your iPhone. Why did this happen? And what happens when you delete photos from your iPhone? Find the answer in this article.

If you are a beginner in cloud services, you should ask yourself if you are deleting the original photo or its copy. Well, the answer depends on a lot of things. First of all, it depends on the application you are using to delete the photos. Is it Apple Photos or another gallery app like Google Photos? We have covered the results of deleting photos from Apple Photos in this article.

In the Apple Photos app, the result depends on two things – whether the iCloud is turned off or on. Let’s see how it affects your photos.

What happens when you delete photos from iPhone when iCloud is disabled

Again, it depends on two things. Firstly, if you have never activated iCloud backup for photos on your current phone, deleting photos will simply delete them from your phone.

However, if you had previously activated iCloud and your photos are synchronized with iCloud, then if you deactivate iCloud and delete the photos, they will be deleted from your phone only. But, if you reactivate iCloud Photos on the same phone using the same Apple account, the photos you deleted on your phone will also be deleted from your iCloud if they were previously synced. This may be the reason why iCloud deleted your photos.

What happens when you delete photos from iPhone when iCloud is activated

Although things are simple when iCloud is activated, many will not like the repercussions, regardless of the method used to delete photos from iCloud.

When iCloud Photos is activated on your iPhone and you press the Delete button on a photo, it will be deleted from iCloud and other Apple devices connected to the same iCloud account. This happens because your photos are constantly synchronized with iCloud. Thus, deleting an image from one device will delete it from all.

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

Point: Do you use Google Photos on your iPhone or iPad? Find out 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 photos on your iPhone, you can recover them easily. 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. You can recover the photos within 30 days of their deletion. If you don’t, they are deleted forever.

If iCloud Photos is enabled on your iPhone, you can recover deleted photos from any connected Apple device and even from iCloud on the web. It is not necessary to use the same iPhone to recover the images.

Here’s how to restore deleted photos on iPhone.

Step 1: Open the Apple Photos app and tap the Albums tab at the bottom. Scroll down and tap the recently deleted album.

2nd step: Press Select and choose the photos you want to recover. Tap Recover.

Point: To select several photos, select a photo and with your finger on the photo, slide your finger to select other photos and videos.

Unable to delete photos on iPhone

If you are unable to delete photos from your iPhone or if the photos reappear after deleting them, the reason may be iTunes. If you added these photos from iTunes, you need to sync your phone to the computer again through iTunes. Then deselect the photos to delete them from your phone. Sometimes photos in other cloud services on the iPhone are also problematic.

How to Free Up iPhone Storage Without Deleting Photos

If you delete photos only to free up storage space on your iPhone or iPad, there are better alternatives. Let’s see them.

1. Activate Optimize iPhone storage

Known as Optimizing iPhone Storage, it’s native functionality provided by Apple for iCloud Photos. It replaces the original copy of the photo on your iPhone with a compressed version, thus saving space. This does not mean that the original photo is deleted. It is safe in iCloud Photos.

Once you activate it, the feature starts to work automatically when your device runs out of storage. For example, if you have 50 GB of photos and videos, your iPhone will only take around 1.5 to 3 GB using the Optimize storage function of the iPhone.

To activate it, go to Settings on your iPhone. Then tap your name and tap iCloud.

Tap Photos. Activate iCloud Photos otherwise. Next, tap Optimize iPhone storage.

2. Use the Google Photos app

Google Photos is a great alternative to iCloud Photos. It also comes with a native function to free up storage space on your phone. Unlike iCloud, no space will be occupied on your phone if you use the free storage option provided by Google Photos. Freeing up space is a great way to delete photos from iPhone only and not from Google Photos. If you like the app, you can even move your iCloud photos to Google Photos.

Temporarily delete photos

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