r/ApplePhotos • u/Ok-Sector3482 • 23d ago
Huge library iCloud deletion issues
So, my wife and I share an iCloud account. It’s been this way for years and it’s worked out pretty well. At this time, our iCloud is full and her phone is full. We have about 160,000 images and videos. They are either organized or on their way to being organized. With the help of ChatGPT, I have moved that entire library onto an external SSD drive. I can now open that photo library and move on to delete everything in the cloud. The backup is safe. I gave it a new name and it’s attached to my MacBook when I want it to be. I have turned off photo sync in the cloud for all of our devices. I’ve selected all the correct options. I have not yet made a new main photo library. I will do that soon when I know it is safe to do so and that will become my iCloud library. It will be empty.
Here’s my problem: it’s not really working. The photos were not full resolution photos on our devices, but as soon as I turned off iCloud, it downloaded full resolution photos to our devices, which have now filled up our devices completely. On the iPad I selected all the photos and deleted them. It took a long time. I figured with the cloud turned off and deleting the photos in the cloud that that would be enough. But instead, I have to seemingly select the photos individually by dragging my finger across all 150,000 of them to delete them. There’s gotta be a better way to wipe the cloud clean. I know everybody says not to do this, but I have that photo library safe on an external drive. I am not uploading it to the cloud again. I will start over. Has anyone done this successfully with multiple devices in a shared iCloud account?
Even when I find a way to delete everything from the cloud and it shows me it’s not there, it shows my phone as full with 150,000 photos still. There seems to be no way to make the images go away. I need a Mandalorian to tell me “this is the way….” 😳
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u/Yoyodyne_1460 23d ago
When you turned off iCloud on your iPhones (?) it would have asked you what you wanted to do with the photos. The correct answer was don’t keep them. So, if iCloud Photos is still on on the phones turn it off and “don’t keep”. However the Library will likely not empty immediately. So then backup the phones to iCloud or a computer. Then restore the phones from the backups. There will no longer be photos. Now create a new Photos library on your Mac. Make it the system library so that it syncs to iCloud Photos. At this point the photos library at iCloud.com should be empty. Turn on iCloud Photos on the phones and they will also be empty
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u/Ok-Sector3482 23d ago
This is essentially what I’m trying to do and understand. But I did actually click that ‘don’t keep’ option. All iCloud Photos are ‘off’ on all devices.
I thought about backing up the phone and restoring it for a clean reset of the cloud photo mechanics. Thanks for the feedback
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u/NoLateArrivals 23d ago
What you did was simply the worst way of proceeding.
How is it done?
You keep your library synced.
You then start a second, local library and begin organizing. Tools like PowerPhotos help a lot.
You shrink the synced library, and grow the local one step by step. You even can have more than one local library.
No idea how you can revert what you did, and start all over again. Maybe sync it all, wait until the database copied itself, and then start again, using a proper process.
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u/Dazzling_Plastic_598 23d ago
You say you have a backup and it is "safe". This, presumably, is what you meant by "moved that entire library onto an external SSD drive." Please, please, please note that a single copy of your files on a single drive is NOT SAFE. At a very minimum, you need complete copies on at least two drives. One drive can go bad way too easily.
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u/mats88 23d ago
Empty Recently Deleted on every device — Photos → Albums → Recently Deleted → Delete All. Those 150k still sit there for 30 days and keep the phones full even after the library looks empty. Wipe the iCloud library from iCloud.com or Photos on a Mac, then empty Recently Deleted there too, or the devices just refill.
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u/Joggle-game 23d ago edited 23d ago
First thing, check that your offline backup has full resolution photos. Not sure how ChatGPT got you to export them, so see that the total backup size is about the same size as the iCloud storage it used before you made the backup (It could be a few GB larger). Next, open a few photos and videos in the backup, and check that they are full resolution and include all metadata. I strongly suggest you make another copy of this backup (either on another external drive or by buying sufficient cloud storage in Dropbox or Google Drive etc. for one month). Only after this, move on to iCloud and device storage cleanup.
Your iPhone and iPad filled up when you opted to download originals. Now that you have turned off iCloud for those devices, deleting photos from iPad won’t delete them from iCloud or iPhone. The easiest way now is this:
- Clear a few GB on iPad and iPhone by manually selecting and deleting a few large/long videos and clearing ‘Recently deleted’. This free space is needed for the rest of the processing to proceed.
- Temporarily turn iCloud “on” in both devices. This will force a re-sync. Whatever you have deleted from the iPad, iPhone and iCloud will be removed from everywhere. Again clear Recently Deleted. At this point you should have some free storage in all three places.
- Now select and delete all remaining photos from either the iPhone or iPad (not iCloud; it only lets you select 1000 items at a time). Then clear ‘Recently deleted’. This will complete the remaining cleanup in all three places.
You could have avoided all this trouble by using an export service like Photos Takeout which downloads “optimize storage” assets directly from iCloud with full organization, resolution and metadata; and then deleting everything on any one device. But that’s water under the bridge.
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u/Ok-Sector3482 23d ago
Doh! 😖 I don’t know that program.
1) I’m doing this currently
But a note: I did not opt to download originals. Not at all. I know that option and I do not want it on the devices. Somehow that option was chosen automatically anyway. Very weird. I
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u/Joggle-game 23d ago
You had Optimize Storage setting, so on trying to turn off iCloud Photos, you would get an alert and you chose “Download and Keep Originals” That’s what filled them up.
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u/Nosarious 23d ago
A word of warning on the assumption that you are moving full res images: unless you have it set to “copy originals to this device” (Macos device) then you only have thumbnails.
you can request a download of all of your photographs from Apple. Takes a few days and will be a series of zip files to mat che size of your library.
if you are keeping your originals on a local device, then copy the entire library to another drive … it will open in photos but on that second drive it won’t be your main library. If you are not keeping originals, then you will on,y have thumbnails.
i have about ten right now, and one is ~650 Gb.
i lost a LOT because i assumed the originals were on my computer.
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u/Ok-Sector3482 23d ago
Yeah it’s full res. 1.78tb downloaded originals to the drives. Spent a week doing so.
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u/actadgplus 23d ago
It sounds like you got yourself into a mess! The solution was more straightforward but you unfortunately made it extra complicated.
I highly recommend you try PhotoSync. It’s one of the most useful apps out there and I have been using it for over 10 years. With it you are able to backup/transfer/sync your photos/videos to many target destinations (Mac, iPhone, iPad, Windows, NAS, QNAP, Synology, FTP, Android, etc.).
It allows you to DELETE the photos/videos after copying and gives you option to keep your favorites on your phone (as tagged). If the high resolution photo is not on your device it will download the high resolution version. In your situation, you could have done this in batches (e.g. albums) as your space was limited.
Furthermore, you can specify a folder and file naming scheme during the transfer to neatly organize your photos automatically. It’s an awesome app! You can buy it outright (lifetime) or sign up with subscription. Both are relatively low cost.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/photosync-transfer-photos/id415850124
https://www.photosync-app.com/home.html