Delete photos from iCloud in Photos on Mac
If you need more iCloud storage space, you can upgrade your iCloud storage. See Upgrade to iCloud+. If you don’t want to upgrade your iCloud storage, you can delete some photos from iCloud to free up space. Here’s a simple way to make copies and then delete photos from iCloud using Photos on your Mac.
Make copies of the photos you want to delete
To make copies of the photos stored in iCloud, first download the originals to your Mac and then export them for safekeeping.
In the Photos app
on your Mac, choose Photos > Settings, click iCloud, then select “Download Originals to this Mac.” You may have to wait while the original photos are downloaded from iCloud to your System Photo Library. (If this option was previously selected, your originals are already stored in the library.)
When the update is complete, select the photos you want to export.
Choose File > Export > Export [number] Photos, then choose the export settings you want and click Export.
Choose a location in the Finder or on an external disk to store your files, then click Export.
Delete the original photos from your System Photo Library
When you delete files from your System Photo Library, they’re also deleted from iCloud.
In the Photos app
on your Mac, select the items you want to delete and press the Delete key, then click Delete.The deleted items now appear in the Recently Deleted album in the sidebar, and they no longer use storage in iCloud. The deleted items are available in Recently Deleted for 30 days, on all of your devices where you’re signed in with the same Apple ID.
Note: The Recently Deleted album only appears in the sidebar after you delete photos. If you delete or recover everything from the Recently Deleted album and it becomes empty, it disappears from the sidebar.