Will I Lose My Photos If I Turn Off iCloud Photos?

Myra updated on Apr 15, 2024 to iOS Questions and Answers

I don't know why my photos are saved to iCloud, and it keeps annoying me that my iCloud storage is almost full. I would solve this by turning off the iCloud Photos so that it would no longer save future photos onto the cloud. But when I go to switch it off, it warns me: Do you want to download your iCloud photos to this iPhone? Photos and videos that have been used to optimize space will be removed from this iPhone.

The answer could be yes or no. You may lose your photos if you turn off iCloud Photos, but it depends. When you go to Settings > User Name > iCloud > Photos > Toggle off iCloud Photos on your iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch, you will meet three options: Remove from iPhone, Download Photos & Videos, and Cancel.

  • Remove from iPhone: There are two options on the Photos page under iCloud Photos: Optimize iPhone Storage and Download and Kepp Originals. If you choose the Optimize iPhone Storage, photos and videos that have been optimized to save space will be removed from this iPhone. If you choose the latter one and then turn off iCloud Photos, it will do nothing to your iPhone's downloaded photos and videos but stop uploading them to iCloud.
  • Download Photos & Videos: This option lets you download all photos and videos from iCloud Photos to your iPhone storage. However, you have to ensure you have enough space on your physical iPhone to store all the photos and videos from iCloud.
  • Cancel: Tap on this option, and it will cancel the process of disabling iCloud Photos with nothing changed.

One thing to remind you: Once you turn off iCloud Photos, it will stop syncing new items to iCloud, and all your uploaded images and videos will deleted 30 days later after you stop using iCloud. Therefore, it is better to create a copy of pictures on your iOS devices before you disable iCloud Photos.

Whenever it comes to backup, you can't miss the professional iPhone backup tool - EaseUS MobiMover Free. It can transfer photos from an iPhone to an external hard drive or PC without losing quality. Moreover, considering the specific picture format on iPhone, which is not supported on Windows PC, it can also batch convert HEIC to JPG for Windows users to access iPhone photos.

Using EaseUS MobiMover to back up photos to a PC all at once is easy:

Step 1. Connect your iPhone to your computer and launch EaseUS MobiMover.

Step 2. From the left panel, choose Phone to PC mode, select the category of Pictures, and adjust where you want to store your images.

Step 3. Click Transfer to start the whole process, and after it finishes, you can go to the location to check the transferred images.

Related Article: How to Turn Off iCloud Photos Without Deleting Everything