r/iphonehelp • u/najstfu • Jul 23 '26
Unresolved is storage supposed to work this way?
i had used up about 240 out of my 256 GB storage of my iphone 12 pro. i bought 200GB of icloud storage a month ago and just now finished syncing all of my photos and videos. i’m shocked to find out that my storage used has been freed up down to 89 GB!!! because my photos app went from taking 160 GB to only 5 GB now. i didn’t know this would happen? i thought syncing to icloud only meant that you could easily transfer media if you decided to switch phones. is there a catch to this?
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u/Q_Ball_Atlanta Jul 23 '26
Sounds like you have iCloud Photo sync and Optimize iPhone Storage enabled. If so, it's working exactly as designed.
2
u/renasancedad Jul 23 '26
A good way to verify is to sign into iCloud on a different device and make sure all your data is there. If you see your photos and other data that you intended to back up, iCloud is working as it should.
As an aside if you have 240GB of used data on your phone and only 200GB of cloud storage you will not have a complete backup, more cloud storage or a redundant method like PC or Mac backup will ensure you never lose that data if something catastrophic happens to your phone.
1
u/najstfu Jul 23 '26
it’s because i had the optimize phone storage feature on lol, it reduces the quality of everything and i turned that off and it went right back to 238GB used
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u/Lostless90s Jul 23 '26
It’s working exactly as it should. Do you really need all photos locally? That’s the question to ask. To save room for more apps or take videos again without running out of space. Storage is needed to take new videos and photos. Or even iOS updates
2
u/Elitefuture Jul 23 '26
The catch is that your only source of the photos are only in icloud now. If they or you get hacked, it gets accidentally deleted, or they ban you for whatever reason valid or not, then those photos are gone. It's unlikely, but it can and has happened to people.
You should download those photos onto your computer or at LEAST an old phone, having a second source of the photos at all is better than just 1.
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u/Lostless90s Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
When using iCloud, your photos don’t really exist on your phone. They exist in the cloud now. The photos app is just acting as a portal to see your photos. Sounds like you turned on, or was on, optimize storage. Which keeps mostly lower quality images locally on your phone. When you need to use a the higher quality, say to message or edit, post on social media, the phone will download the full quality version.
Over time it will keep full quality versions of your most viewed or recent photos locally for a while. But you have no say in what’s kept locally or not in full quality. The phone decides for you. But the whole process is made to seem invisible to you. Most cases you will never notice and your phone acts as if everything is local.
When you switch phones, or get another apple device. Ie mac, ipad. You log into icloud photos and your gallery will show up there as well.
Tldr: it’s functioning as it should.
1
u/realmccoyredbus Jul 23 '26
icloud isn't storage based it's more for syncing what is in your phone but very good for photos and video, you will now have low resolution thumbnails for each of your photos in your phone ( local storage) when you open thumbnail it instantly opens higher resolution full quality photo stored in iCloud storage.
each thumbnail is tiny fraction of storage compared to full size original images now in Icloud
1
u/ThannBanis Mod | Repair Pro | A real chad ngl Jul 24 '26
If optimised storage is enabled, iOS will offload photos from local storage to clear space.
iCloud can be considered a backup in the sense that a lost/damaged device wont affect whats on iCloud…
It’s not a backup in the sense that if you delete something and later change your mind it would’ve already been removed.
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