Synced photos filled storage

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Synced photos filled storage

I had over 5500 photos on iPhone and over 5000 on iPad. Somehow they have merged so I now have the same 11,000 photos on both which has filled the storage on both devices. I have used the same Apple ID on both for years but the photos were always separate before (even though calendar, notes and contacts automatically synced).

What have I clicked to do this as I’m scared to muck about with settings incase I lose anything but I can’t have the storage full on both. Thanks in advance for your advice.

iPhone 8

Posted on Jan 13, 2021 5:19 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Lawrence Finch

Level 10

203,026 points

Jan 13, 2021 5:22 PM in response to BluePanther1237

If they share the same iCloud account then everything in iCloud will be synced to all devices using that account. That’s not new; it’s always worked that way. You can try enabling optimized photos, which will reduce the size of photos on the device but still keep full resolution in iCloud.

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Answer 2

Jan 13, 2021 5:56 PM in response to Lawrence Finch

Thank you for replying Lawrence. My confusion lies with the fact I’ve had the same ID in both for years and yet the photos have only decided to sync now and it’s taking up all the storage on both which seems a bit bonkers. At least when they were separated, the storage they were taking up was spread between the 2.

My other problem with only storing low resolution photos on my phone is, if I want to print a photo off (in Boots for example), it will print the low resolution photo from my phone.

Is it possible they have synced with the latest update? I really want to unstnc the photos but keep notes/contacts and calendar synced. Is this at all possible?

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Answer 3

Jan 14, 2021 6:57 AM in response to BluePanther1237

Yes, if you turn off photo sync on the phone that will not affect the photos stored on iCloud. You will have to leave it off; if you turn it on it will sync everything back. But there are other ways to transfer photos to your computer, and thence to iCloud.

Something else to consider is to use a 3rd party cloud storage service such as Dropbox, Google Photos, box.com, shutterfly, Amazon photos, etc.

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Answer 4

Jan 13, 2021 6:08 PM in response to BluePanther1237

My photos have always synced between both my iPhone and my iPad.

go to Settings/[Your Name]/icloud and turn off Photos. You can leave on any switches you want to continue syncing.

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Answer 5

Jan 13, 2021 11:47 PM in response to Lawrence Finch

Thank you so much again Lawrence. If I do this, will all my photos still be saved on iCloud?

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Answer 6

Jan 14, 2021 10:10 AM in response to Lawrence Finch

i thought if I turned off photos in iCloud, then they wouldn’t be stored in iCloud at all!

Thank you so much for your help Lawrence

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Answer 7

Jan 14, 2021 10:28 AM in response to BluePanther1237

If you turn off photos in iCloud then photos on your phone will no longer sync to iCloud, but photos that are already there will remain.

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Answer 8

Jan 14, 2021 10:58 AM in response to Lawrence Finch

Fabulous!! Thank you so much again!!! All the best. 😌

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Synced photos filled storage

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