Leo Kostizen wants to use iCloud Photos. However, he’s worried that once he’s enabled the cloud-based photo syncing and storage system on his iPhone 18 Pro or iPhone 18 Pro Max and his Mac that a deletion in one place deletes the items everywhere.
If a deletion is made on any device, the same picture is deleted on all devices connected to the cloud…What if I retain full-resolution pictures on my iMac? Will the deletion also be made here?
I can see a grandchild accidentally deleting a few pictures and me not even realizing that they are gone. I always keep a backup but it would be difficult to tell whether I need to restore.
An excellent point and concern. To my knowledge, you can’t lock down Photos to prevent deletions entirely.
Should a photo or video be deleted from iOS or macOS if you have iCloud Photos enabled—yes, it is deleted everywhere, whether you’re deleting an optimized version or the full-resolution one on a Mac.
However, the deletion isn’t immediate without an extra step. Instead, iCloud Photos moves it to a Recently Deleted album. Items are moved here and retained for weeks. Deleted photos and videos are kept in the Recently Deleted collection for 30 days.
In Photos, tap Collections, tap the Recently Deleted collection (below Utilities), tap View Album, then unlock your iPhone. You can tap Select, choose one or more items, then tap the More button and tap Recover, and they’re moved back to the main library. You can also immediately delete items if you’re trying to recover storage space, by choosing one or more photos and videos, then tapping the More button and tapping Delete—in that case, they’re immediately deleted.
