iPhone says not enough storage for photos, but there is.

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iPhone says not enough storage for photos, but there is.

I filled up my 5GB, it gave me an error message. That's fine. I delete a bunch of old photos on my iMac, and I delete them from the "recently deleted" folder. The iPhone (new SE model) doesn't pick that up, even after a couple days.

I delete the photos from the iPhone as well. In settings it says iCloud is using 4.3 GB of 5 GB available (that includes backup). I reboot the phone. Still no go. I log in to iCloud.com, it looks similar to my iMac, but I delete a couple more pictures from there. No change, it still says it cannot upload 22 of my recent photos (I only have 9 recent photos that aren't synced).

What else can I do?

iPhone SE

Posted on Dec 19, 2021 8:35 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Vero_F1

Community Specialist

Dec 21, 2021 10:46 AM in response to LZNeff

LZNeff,

Thank you for the additional information. There is a Recently Deleted album on the iPhone. Review "Delete photos permanently" in Delete photos on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch for steps on how to access it. Remove the deleted photos from that album. After that connect your iPhone to power and make sure you are getting a strong network connection. Check to see if it starts to upload your newer photos now.

If it still doesn't upload your photo try turning off Low Data Mode for cellular data on your iPhone. You can view steps on how to do that in Use Low Data Mode on your iPhone and iPad. Make sure you turn it off only for cellular data and not for Wi-Fi.

Cheers.

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Answer 2

LZNeff Author

Level 1

10 points

Dec 21, 2021 12:08 PM in response to Vero_F1

I think that was it (I was looking in the wrong place for the recently deleted photos).

I had one large video that was apparently gumming up the works. It was deleted but not permanently deleted. So I air-dropped it to the Mac, then permanently deleted it. I did something else for an hour to give it time to sync, and now the new pictures are showing up on the Mac.

The interesting thing is that the space available on iCloud (shown in the Settings) never changed. So that number doesn't include the recently deleted photos.

Thank you for your patience!

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Answer 3

Vero_F1

Community Specialist

Dec 20, 2021 10:37 AM in response to LZNeff

Hello LZNeff,

It sounds like you are trying to make room in iCloud to sync your photos, but after deleting photos, you don't see any additional space.

Here are some resources on this topic:

Set up and use iCloud Photos - Since the photos you’ve deleted on your Mac remain on your iPhone, it sounds to us that you haven’t enabled iCloud Photos on your iPhone. To turn it on, go to Settings > [your name] > iCloud and turn Photos on. When you turn it on, the photos and videos you already deleted on your Mac may appear again in iCloud and your Mac.

Also check out Manage your iCloud storage for more information on managing your iCloud storage.

Hope this information helps.

Have a good day.

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Answer 4

LZNeff Author

Level 1

10 points

Dec 20, 2021 7:31 PM in response to Vero_F1

I've already looked at those pages.

I do have iCloud Photos enabled on my phone. The message on my phone at the bottom of pictures on Photos says

"22 items have not been uploaded to iCloud. Manage. Not enough iCloud storage". All the photos are synced, including some from 10 days ago, except the last 9*.

Occasionally in the past it would give me a problem but then would start working again, apparently as photos are recognized as deleted and space is available. This time it's not recovering, even though settings on the phone now says that 4.2 GB of the 5 GB are used. Those are all normal photos, certainly not taking up 800 MB.

I updated to iOS 15.2 today. No change. I can't find what version Photos is, but it doesn't prompt me for an update, so it must be current.

*There must be more to it, since my phone says there 841 photos & 13 videos, while my Mac and iCloud.com says there are 731 photos and 11 videos. I haven't gone thru them one by one to see where the differences are.

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Answer 5

LZNeff Author

Level 1

10 points

Dec 21, 2021 7:46 AM in response to LZNeff

When you delete photos on the Mac, it goes into a "Recently deleted" folder, and isn't actually deleted for another 30 days. Is there something similar on the iPhone side?

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iPhone says not enough storage for photos, but there is.

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