How do I quickly free up space from iCloud Photos after disabling sync on iPhone?

JeffReynolds wrote:

Wouldn't #3 be a great feature?

Not necessarily, but if you think so then you can tell Apple how you feel through their official portal for such matters: Feedback - Photos - Apple

You can minimize the amount of storage your photos and videos take up on your phone (for a while) by enabling Optimize iPhone Storage immediately on turning iCloud Photos back on after deleting stuff while syncing is disabled. The items downloaded should be brought down at minimum size. (I don't generally recommend doing a delete-and-download cycle just to improve optimization, because it leaves you with one fewer copy of the photos, but if you were deleting the on-phone copies anyway...)

I think I would

• make sure markwmsn sees nothing wrong with this:
• turn off iCloud*
• be very very sure
• check at iCloud.com to be extra sure
• delete all pictures on the iPad
• upgrade to iPadOS 18.5
• make sure everything works
• then turn on iCloud Photos.

The iPad Photos Library should then fill with pictures from iCloud.com, maybe taking days to complete. It would be faster if the iPad were plugged in, locked, and left alone.

*To mitigate markwmsn's concern about a period of time having only one copy of the pictures, I think I would open a new Apple Account and spend a couple of bucks for one month's storage.

Disabling iCloud Photos on a device disables syncing between that device and iCloud, leaving two separate libraries with the same contents. If you no longer wanted the photos and videos on the device, you could delete them without affecting the iCloud contents and any other devices synced to iCloud.

The exception would be if Optimize Storage was also enabled. In that case, the device would contain only portions of some photos and videos, so it would want to download the full resolution versions if it could. That would be why it would be adding storage but not photos. (It may actually ask whether it should download the full resolution versions or remove the thumbnail versions; I haven't looked recently. Were you asked?)

JeffReynolds wrote:

2) If I delete some or all of them, and later turn sync on again, will it sync the deletions?

Maybe I'm misunderstanding #2, but,

If you turn off iCloud, delete pictures on your phone, and then turn on iCloud again, all the pictures at iCloud will transfer back to the phone. iCloud Photos ensures that all the connected Photos Libraries will be exactly the same. It won't remove pictures, but it will add pictures from the phone to iCloud and from iCloud to the phone until both Libraries are exactly the same.

If you are using Optimize and you turn off iCloud, then Photos will tell you that the "optimized" pictures will be deleted from the phone, and it gives you a chance to say, "No."

JeffReynolds wrote: … As I delete photos, I think it's adding photos from the cloud. So, as I make space to allow the upgrade, iCloud keeps putting photos back into the hole as I do.

Note Step 2, turn off iCloud*

I was thinking I should just wipe the iPad and allow the upgrade and then my iCloud backup to replace everything.

If you "wipe the iPad," you may lose things other than pictures. I'd feel uncomfortable with that, but it depends on what you have.

Is it possible to create a new Apple account and associate this iPad to that?

Sure-- it will need be a different email address.

There has to be a better way to manage the space that I'm missing.

No. Handling having too little storage space has always been awful. Ask my wife who has filled one bedroom with so much stuff that nothing else will fit. (You do not need to ask me about the garage.) This is not a problem limited to iPads. Try walking into any room and ask for a show of hands of all those who have too much empty storage space--computers, iPad, closets, anything.

To clean up, you have to move stuff out-- but if you had a place to put the stuff, it wouldn't be there in the first place! So, you either buy more space (off site storage unit or more iCloud,) or you throw stuff away (but what if I need it later, or I find that it was really valuable?) or spend an inordinate amount of time moving bits and pieces around trying not to ruin or lose anything.

JeffReynolds wrote: : But it's the smaller devices that keep getting choked by the images because I can't limit the amount of locally stored images - right?

If a device gets full, it can behave very badly. If an app doesn't have room to move files around, then doing some normal things gets pretty hairy. We see "Recently Deleted" no longer working, because there's no room. And since the operation must also be copied to iCloud, weird things can propagate around to other devices--but the only things I can think of are like deletions not happening when you thought they were.

With "Optimize Storage" turned on, Photos on the device doesn't move original picture files around, but rather makes changes to a database and sends those changes off to iCloud Photos.

If you don't use "Optimize," then the "limit" is the size of the Library. If you turn on "Optimize," then the "limit" is something less than 10% of the Library size. Photos on my Optimized iPhone take up less than 5% of my Library's size. There is no other "limit" needed.

1. You can select all and delete in the library, yes. As you disabled iCloud sync, your photos in iCloud are unaffected.
2. Nope. It will combine the photos on device with those in iCloud.
3. No