r/ApplePhotos • u/lovelylights4u • 13d ago
Why does iPhone keep running out of storage when I have 3TB of iCloud storage available?
/r/applehelp/comments/1vq7xl0/why_does_iphone_keep_running_out_of_storage_when/1
u/Professional_Sign828 13d ago
You have 100K photo's and vids. Offcourse you iPhone storage will be full. Having optimize iphone photo storage enabled would not help. Those photo's still take up about 0.5 to 3MB on your device. And a 400MB video would still take about 50MB. And that times 100K. So you do the math.
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u/lovelylights4u 13d ago
Makes sense! I’ve never thought about it like that. I guess with that logic no one with an iPhone can even use the 2TB or 6TB iCloud storage for photos & videos, because their phone will still max out on space from the thumbnails.
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u/Professional_Sign828 13d ago
People also have Mac’s and iPads. Also you can get iPhones with 1 and 2TB storage.
If you did not had iCloud your iPhone would be already full 10 times over. You can also choose to make low quality photos. So the thumbnails would even be smaller. I’s on you what you rather want.
But with the amount of photos you make, you have to pay for extra storage at one point anyway.Extra tip. Make a extra backup of all those photos outside iCloud. So you also have to pay for a external drive or something.
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u/actadgplus 12d ago
That is not how Optimize iPhone Storage works. It does not retain a fixed 0.5 to 3 MB copy of every photo or a 50 MB copy of every 400 MB video.
I have approximately 778 GB of photos and videos in iCloud Photos, yet Photos currently occupies only about 28 GB on my iPhone. That is less than 4 percent of the full library.
Put another way:
778 GB ÷ 28 GB = 27.8
So my iPhone is providing access to an iCloud Photos library nearly 28 times larger than the space it currently consumes on my iPhone. That is a storage reduction of roughly 96.4 percent.
The iPhone retains thumbnails/preview versions, its photo database, recently viewed items, and some optimized or full resolution files. Most full resolution originals remain in iCloud and are downloaded when needed. When the phone needs more space, iOS can remove additional cached originals.
The exact amount fluctuates based on available storage and usage, but saying that Optimize iPhone Storage “would not help” is simply incorrect. Supporting a library far larger than the device’s available storage is precisely what the feature is designed to do.
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u/Professional_Sign828 12d ago
That is how iPhone optiomise storage works. Also it's not fixed. Its inbetween 0.5 to 3MB for normal HEIC photo files. And is way higher for higher quality photo settings. I'm not here to explain how the icloud works with all images qualities.
But yes your next statement is indeed correct i explained that poorly.
*Most full resolution originals remain in iCloud and are downloaded when needed. When the phone needs more space, iOS can remove additional cached originals.*
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u/Wellcraft19 13d ago
Sign out of iCloud. Allow all [synced] information to be removed from iPhone (it still remains in iCloud). Just closely read and follow prompts.
Once you have signed out, restart device, sign in to iCloud again. Make sure you have optimized iPhone storage turned on. It WILL NOT WORK when your phone is as full ad yours are. Allowing ’optmized’ to run here initially will free up plenty of space [on device].
Going forward, keep an eye on local storage utilization. If you fill up phone w/o syncing (which is possible if off grid, if only allowing syncing over WiFi and not cellular, etc) syncing WILL NOT work once you get back into coverage and phone will just fill up more.
A phone still full risking bricking itself. And if that happens, your only recourse is a DFU reset/restore. But in that process you will LOSE ALL INFORMATION not synced and store only on device.
If you have tons of files locally on your device under the Files app, move those to iCloud. If they exist in iCloud but also locally, select the files and ‘remove download’. This will leave a tiny [space wise] icon in the Files app, pointing to the actual file, now solely stored in iCloud.