Deleting photos without affecting album photos

[billwill]

I have a few hundred photos on my iPhone7 and have put quite a few into especially-named Albums. When I went to "clean up" the photos by deleting one, it automatically deleted the photo from the album.

Is there a way I can delete photos in my general "Photos" group WITHOUT them being deleted from the album they're in? Thank you very much for your help and expertise.

 

[KevinJS]

AFAIK there is no way to do this. The photos in your albums are essentially links to the actual image in your camera roll.

 

[billwill]

AFAIK there is no way to do this. The photos in your albums are essentially links to the actual image in your camera roll.

Thank you. But... what's the use of having Albums? By putting photos on the roll into Albums, doesn't that just DOUBLE the space they take up?

 

[J. A.]

No, it doesn’t. They are just virtual pointers to the original. There’s just one copy of every image on your iPhone, and it’s located in the Photos album.

 

[Alexm1]

I am not an expert on iOS architecture but the way this type of storage usually works is that there is just one image stored, the album simply provides a way to easily find photos, it is essentially a search function.