Marie Kim

Q: ios 8 / iphone 5s - deleted photos, memory still appears occupied

To make more storage space on my iphone, I went through and deleted about 1,300 photos from my iphone.  They were in my "recently deleted" album for 30 days and then they disappeared.  So I expected to have more storage available on my iphone (maybe 10 GB more?).

 

But no, something is wrong.  Whenever I attach my phone to the laptop by USB, it still appears that I have thousands and many GBs of photos.

 

I have a 32 GB iphone 5s, and I have installed ios 8.1.2.  I back up my iphone to my laptop only.  I do not use iCloud or Photostream.  My laptop is running Windows 7.

 

I can't see the deleted photos anymore on my phone.  But I think they are still occupying the memory.  I received a warning that I was running out of storage.

 

To try to fix this, I did a back-up and then restored the phone tonight.  Three hours later, I have a little more storage available from removing "other" files.  But the photos still look like they occupy many GBs.

 

I'm at a loss.  Has anyone else experienced this?  Did your phones end up overwriting deleted photos when you needed more storage?  Or is there a fix?

iPhone 5s, iOS 8.1.2

Posted on Jan 14, 2015 11:12 PM

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Q: ios 8 / iphone 5s - deleted photos, memory still appears occupied

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  • by selenafromshenzhen,Helpful

    selenafromshenzhen selenafromshenzhen Jan 15, 2015 12:30 AM in response to Marie Kim
    Level 2 (259 points)
    Jan 15, 2015 12:30 AM in response to Marie Kim

    Hi, first, I have to make 2 things clearly:

    First, the deleted photos are still on your iPhone, not Camera Roll, but in 'Recently Deleted'. From here, you should select them all and delete them permanently.

    Second, besides the photos in iPhone Camera Roll, which you can delete, but there are some photos in photo library you can't delete at all. To clear all all photos in photo library, you should connect your iPhone with your computer and launch iTunes > click your iPhone and navigate to Photos > check Sync photos from > select an empty folder and apply the sync.

  • by Cabakon,

    Cabakon Cabakon Jan 24, 2015 11:25 PM in response to selenafromshenzhen
    Level 1 (5 points)
    iPhone
    Jan 24, 2015 11:25 PM in response to selenafromshenzhen

    Hi,

    I have followed your steps and now I don't have a single photo(video) in my albums, recently deleted, other albums. I switched off the photo stream and icloud photo sharing. I have also synced an empty folder, so I don't have any photos in tree the Moments either.

     

    Still, iPhone says, that I store 5,75 gb of photo and video.

     

    Thanks for any other advice except restoring my iPhone. Because restoring from backup doesn't help.

  • by timohannay,

    timohannay timohannay Feb 21, 2015 12:41 AM in response to Cabakon
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 21, 2015 12:41 AM in response to Cabakon

    I'm having exactly the same problem on an iPhone 5 running iOS 8.1.3.  I'm pretty sure that all photos have been deleted from the device, including in the 'Recently Deleted' folder, but for some reason it says that there are still 54 photos using 5.73GB.  This doesn't happen for any other data type, such as Music or Movies, which I can delete and restore at will through iTunes.  This seems to be either (a) a bug, or (b) a serious usability problem.

  • by Cabakon,Helpful

    Cabakon Cabakon Feb 21, 2015 10:44 PM in response to timohannay
    Level 1 (5 points)
    iPhone
    Feb 21, 2015 10:44 PM in response to timohannay

    I have found a solution.

     

    You must buy more space in iCloud and then turn the iCloud Photo Library (beta) on. In my case, the 6 gb of photos then magically disappeared.

     

    Hope it helps

  • by SG Yoyo,Helpful

    SG Yoyo SG Yoyo Feb 26, 2015 1:39 AM in response to Cabakon
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Feb 26, 2015 1:39 AM in response to Cabakon

    I managed to get rid of the phantom usage. Restoring iPhone and resetting the phone settings/data do not work for me.

     

    I got creative and moved the Date on my phone earlier by 1,2,3 months and found the phantom photos in the Recently Deleted Folder. Next, I deleted the photos manually from the Recently Deleted Folder and the usage got freed up from my iPhone.

     

    Hope this works for you.

  • by Mm623308,Helpful

    Mm623308 Mm623308 Feb 26, 2015 8:26 AM in response to SG Yoyo
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Feb 26, 2015 8:26 AM in response to SG Yoyo

    This has been a problem for me as well on my iPad but I did find one way to fix it without having to reset. By using a program called iFunbox you can see the "deleted photos" that are taking up space on your device. Once you plug your device into your computer and iTunes recognizes that it is there hit trust on the prompt box that comes up on the device and then open iFunbox. On the left side find Camera and there you will see the pictures. Highlight them all and right click then hit delete. Once they're gone the storage will come back on the device. Hope that helps!

  • by wekey,

    wekey wekey Feb 27, 2015 8:00 AM in response to SG Yoyo
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 27, 2015 8:00 AM in response to SG Yoyo

    Thanks a lot it worked for me

  • by timohannay,

    timohannay timohannay Feb 27, 2015 2:27 PM in response to Cabakon
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 27, 2015 2:27 PM in response to Cabakon

    Thanks, this worked for me.  Unfortunately it involves paying more money to Apple in order to provide a clunky workaround for the bug they created in the first place. But if you downgrade immediately afterwards then the cost is mere pennies, which in the end is worth it to retrieve multiple GB of storage.

  • by dakocaga,

    dakocaga dakocaga Feb 28, 2015 1:07 PM in response to SG Yoyo
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 28, 2015 1:07 PM in response to SG Yoyo

    Bro, you're a true genius. Congrats on your creativity and thanks a lot for sharing this with us. This Yosemite/iOS 8 pair is the s&*ttest operational system apple has ever made, everything got slow and dumb. After a decade of loyalty, I'm considering moving to another brand/system. It can't be worse than this one.

  • by kofm,

    kofm kofm Mar 20, 2015 4:37 PM in response to Marie Kim
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 20, 2015 4:37 PM in response to Marie Kim

    SSimply disable iCloud photo library

  • by goingstellar,

    goingstellar goingstellar Mar 26, 2015 5:53 PM in response to Marie Kim
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Mar 26, 2015 5:53 PM in response to Marie Kim

    I have the same problem.

    Apparently I'm not the only one: https://blog.tmoehle.de/ios-photo-problem/#more-369 (this goes a little more in-depth)

     

    The storage being used isn't "phantom usage", the photos are still safely stored on the phone whether deleted or not.

    When checking in iexplorer the photos are in the exact same place they were before, but don't appear on my iphone.

     

    As long as I regularly delete all "recently deleted" images, all is good.

    If I don't, the photos disappear from the "recently deleted" folder after 30 days, but still clog up space.

     

    I've only had this issue come up on iOS 8 and I still don't know how to fix it, apart from manually double-deleting every photo -_-

    I don't really want to turn on iCloud photo library. Any other suggestions?

     

    Cheers,

  • by ironmauro,

    ironmauro ironmauro Mar 30, 2015 1:57 PM in response to SG Yoyo
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 30, 2015 1:57 PM in response to SG Yoyo

    SG Yoyo  you are a genius!

  • by itsraaghav,

    itsraaghav itsraaghav Mar 30, 2015 7:15 PM in response to SG Yoyo
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 30, 2015 7:15 PM in response to SG Yoyo

    beautiful. This worked for me. Hats off to your creative thinking

  • by Ethan7988,Helpful

    Ethan7988 Ethan7988 Mar 30, 2015 7:28 PM in response to Marie Kim
    Level 4 (1,664 points)
    iPad
    Mar 30, 2015 7:28 PM in response to Marie Kim

    The solution requires you to purchase more space. However, that is not at all necessary.

     

    Why does my iOS device say I have more photos than I can find?

     

    This solutions (by a user, txforever) does not require you to purchase iCloud space.

     

    -Ethan

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