How to delete photos from Photo Stream on iPhone and iPad

December 10, 2014

The original Photo Stream service automatically saves your last 1,000 photos or 30 days of photos and syncs them across all your Apple devices. Since Photo Stream doesn't count against your iCloud storage, you might think you don't have to worry about deleting them. However, every once and a while a photo might slip in that your definitely don't want syncing between your devices. If and when that happens, you can easily delete the photo from Photo Stream, and that will not only remove it from all devices, but in the case of the new iCloud Photo Library service, delete it permanently as well.

How to delete photos from Photo Stream (iCloud Photo Library disabled)

If you have the new iCloud Photo Library service turned off, and you delete photos from Photo Stream, you'll still retain a local copy in the Camera Roll of whatever device you took them on. In other words, it will be removed from the collection of 1000 photos or 30 days of photos synced across your iPhone, iPad, and/or Mac, but you'll still have the original image on the original device.

Launch the Photos app on your iPhone or iPad.
Tap on My Photo Stream under the Albums tab.
Tap Select in the upper right hand corner.
Tap on the photos you'd like to delete in order to select them and then tap on the trash can in the lower right hand corner.
Tap on Delete Photos in the popup menu to confirm the delete.

How to delete photos from Photo Stream (iCloud Photo Library enabled)

If you have iCloud Photo Library enabled, you lose the traditional My Photo Stream section as well as the Camera Roll. Instead, you are given an All Photos section that contains all your photos and can be synced across all iOS devices (with OS X and Windows support coming in 2015).

iCloud Photo Library has no limit but, and this is a rather large one, if you delete a photo from the All Photos section, it will be deleted across all your devices and from iCloud Photo Library. In other words, it will be gone completely. So while All Photos operates as a Photo Stream of sorts, it doesn't play by the same rules as the traditional version of Photo Stream. Keep this in mind before following the directions below and deleting any photos.

Launch the Photos app on your iPhone or iPad.
Tap on All Photos under the Albums tab.
Tap on the photos you'd like to delete in order to select them and then tap on the trash can in the lower right hand corner.
Tap on Delete Photos in the popup menu to confirm the delete.