To delete photos from Google Photos without affecting your iCloud photos, you need to ensure that Google Photos is not backing up and syncing the photos from your device.
Disabling Backup & Sync on Google Photos
The most important step is to disable Backup & Sync within the Google Photos app. This prevents Google Photos from automatically syncing photos from your device's camera roll, which is where your iCloud photos are stored. Here's how:
- Open the Google Photos app on your iPhone or iPad.
- Tap your profile picture or initial in the top right corner.
- Select "Photos settings."
- Tap "Backup & sync."
- Toggle "Backup & sync" to the off position.
By turning off Backup & Sync, any deletions you make within Google Photos will only affect the copies stored in Google's cloud and will not impact the original photos on your device or in iCloud.
Important Considerations:
- Photos already backed up to Google Photos: If the photos you want to delete from Google Photos have already been backed up, deleting them from Google Photos will not delete them from iCloud, as long as Backup & Sync is disabled before the deletion.
- Local Device: Be mindful that deleting photos from the Google Photos app will delete them from the Google Photos cloud storage. It shouldn't affect your local device if Backup & Sync is disabled, and thus won't affect iCloud.
- Double-Check: Before deleting anything, always verify that Backup & Sync is disabled in the Google Photos app to prevent accidental deletions from your device and iCloud.
In summary, the key is to disable Google Photos' Backup & Sync feature before deleting any photos from the Google Photos app. This ensures that changes made within Google Photos only affect the Google Photos cloud storage and not your device's local storage or your iCloud account.
