Is it possible to turn OFF or disable iCloud Photos and My Photo Stream on iPhone or iPad without losing any of your Photos?
Disable iCloud Photos and My Photo Stream
As you may have noticed, iPhone gives serious warnings when you try to Turn OFF iCloud Photos and My Photo Stream on your iPhone.
However, in most cases you should be able to safely disable iCloud Photos and My Photo Stream without losing Photos stored on source devices.
In order to feel more comfortable about disabling iCloud Photos and My Photo Stream, you need to get an understanding of how iCloud Photos and My Photo Stream work.
You will find below a brief description of iCloud Photos and My Photo Stream along with the steps required to disable iCloud Photos and My Photo Stream on iPhone.
1. Steps to Disable iCloud Photos on iPhone
Enabling the option for iCloud Photos on iPhone allows you to share images taken on your iPhone with family and friends.
When you enable iCloud Photos on your iPhone it only makes a copy of Photos as available on your iPhone. Hence, disabling iCloud Photos on your iPhone is not going to delete Photos stored on your device.
In simple terms. all the images taken and stored on the internal storage of your iPhone won’t be deleted by turning OFF iCloud Photos.
To disable iCloud Photos, go to Settings > Photos > and turn OFF iCloud Photos by moving the toggle to OFF position.
2. Steps to Disable My Photo Stream on iPhone
Enabling My Photo Stream on iPhone allows you to access the photos that you take on your iPhone on all your linked devices (iPad, iPod and Mac).
My Photo Stream makes a copy of images from all your connected devices and turning OFF My Photo Stream on iPhone or iPad only deletes the copy stored on iCloud and it not going to delete Photos stored in the source devices.
To disable My Photo Stream, go to Settings > Photos > and turn OFF My Photo Stream by moving the toggle to OFF position.
3. Steps to Disable iCloud Photos and My Photo Steam on Mac
To disable iCloud Photos on Mac, open the Photos App > click on Photos > Preferences
On the Preferences screen, click on iCloud tab and uncheck iCloud Photos and My Photo Stream.
Note: When iCloud Photos are enabled, you can download a copy of My Photo Stream Photos on your Mac by checking Download Originals to this Mac option.