How to Delete Photos from Google Photos But Not From iCloud

Quick Tips

• You can delete your photos from the Google Photos website or the app itself.
• You can quickly recover your deleted photos by checking the Bin or Recently Deleted folder.

How Do Google Photos and iCloud Work

• Both Apple Photos and Google Photos act as a medium to show you the photos on your phone.
• While Apple Photos comes pre-installed on iPhone and iPad, one can download Google Photos from App Store.
• Apple Photos uses iCloud service, but Google Photos saves them in Google’s cloud, which is different from Apple’s iCloud.
• You can disable image backup for both Google Photos and iCloud and use them as gallery apps only.
• Google Photos takes a photo from your phone and saves it in the Google Cloud. The photo is now in two places — your phone and Google Cloud.
• iCloud also takes your photo and saves it in its cloud. Even though there is a central database, the same copy is kept on your iPhone and other connected Apple devices

What Happens When You Delete a Photo From Google Photos App on iPhone

• When someone tries to delete a photo from the Google Photos app on iPhone, the photo is also deleted from the iPhone and iCloud.
• Even when you use the Free up storage option in Google Photos, it will delete photos from iCloud.
• When you delete a photo from the Google Photos app (or use the Free up storage), it deletes the device copy. But iCloud stores the same copy of the photo on your iPhone and in the cloud.
• When you delete the device copy using the Google Photos app (or even Apple Photos), it is also deleted from the iCloud server.

Delete Photos From Google Photos Without Deleting Them From iCloud

Method 1: Use Google Photos Website

Step 1: Open the web browser and sign in to Google Photos.

Step 2: Then, hover your mouse over the photo that you want to select. Click on the selection icon > select multiple items > press the Shift key, and select other photos.

Step 3: Once you have made the selection, you will see the delete icon at the top-right corner. Click on it.

If you delete photos from the Google Photos website while Backup and sync are enabled on the Google Photos app on your iPhone, you will notice that such images appear again in the Google Photos app.

However, Google does not take a backup of them automatically again. Meaning, they will not be visible on the Google Photos website. You will see the waiting to backup icon on them on your iPhone.

When it is disabled, the photos will not appear in the Google Photos app again. They will stay on your iPhone and can be accessed via the Apple Photos app.

Method 2: Uninstall Google Photos

If you don’t want to use the Google Photos app at all, uninstall it from your iPhone. Uninstalling the app will not delete any photos from your iPhone. Even if photos are saved in Google Photos, they will stay in the cloud. You can view them on the Google Photos website.

If your Google storage is full or you don’t want your photos on the Google servers, open the Google Photos website and delete them.

What Happens When You Disable iCloud Before Deleting From Google Photos 

If you turn off iCloud before deleting photos from Google Photos on your iPhone, the photo will be removed from your device and Google Photos, but it will stay on iCloud. However, if you enable iCloud again on the same phone, the photo will be removed from it, too.

What Happens When You Disable Backup and Sync on Google Photos

If you disable it and then delete photos from the Google Photos app on your iPhone, they will be removed from the iPhone as you are technically deleting the device copy of your iPhone. Once it is deleted, the iCloud copy gets deleted automatically.

How to Recover Deleted Photos

If you accidentally delete some photos, you can recover them via the Bin (or Trash) folder in Google Photos—on the web and mobile apps. To do so, tap on the three-bar icon at the top-left corner of Google Photos and select Bin.

You should also check the Recently deleted folder in the Apple Photos app and iCloud Photos on the web. On iPhone, go to Albums. Scroll down and click on Recently Deleted.