I have over 45GB of photos on my iPhone which I would like to have access to on the device which I'd prefer to store on iCloud on save to my backup drive. I currently have iCloud backup ON, but still seem to have almost 50GB of photos and videos locally on the device. Is there a way to configure the device such that all photos/videos taken or saved on the device are synched to iCloud, but are still available on the device, but not stored in both places?
iPhone 11
Greetings paulhealy1,
Thanks for visiting the Apple Support Communities! I understand you'd like to use iCloud to save your photos and videos taken with your iPhone. Additionally, it seems you'd like to save storage on your iPhone while making the photos available in iCloud.
Enabling Optimize Storage with iCloud Photos will keep space-saving versions of your photos and videos on your iPhone, while the full-resolution photos and videos will be kept in iCloud. You can see that outlined in the following article: Manage your photo and video storage - Apple Support
"With Optimize Storage, smaller, space-saving photos and videos are kept on your device while all of your original, full-resolution versions are stored in iCloud. And as long as you have enough space in iCloud, you can store as many photos and videos as you want."
Kind regards.
Greetings paulhealy1,
Thanks for visiting the Apple Support Communities! I understand you'd like to use iCloud to save your photos and videos taken with your iPhone. Additionally, it seems you'd like to save storage on your iPhone while making the photos available in iCloud.
Enabling Optimize Storage with iCloud Photos will keep space-saving versions of your photos and videos on your iPhone, while the full-resolution photos and videos will be kept in iCloud. You can see that outlined in the following article: Manage your photo and video storage - Apple Support
"With Optimize Storage, smaller, space-saving photos and videos are kept on your device while all of your original, full-resolution versions are stored in iCloud. And as long as you have enough space in iCloud, you can store as many photos and videos as you want."
Kind regards.
Thank you. That’s really helpful. I did wonder what that meant. We’ve enabled that now. Will the device resynch all the photo/video content so the usage locally on the device reduces, cause it’s still showing 45GB?
Photos/Video Synch/Store
