I’m 99% sure I have an iPhone 13 virus

treymans333 wrote:

One of the main things that is perplexing me, does it seem normal to anyone that 3000 pictures and 700 videos (on avg. 30 second a piece) are taking up 145GB worth of storage???

That does seem large—I’m seeing 16 GB for most of 10K of not-high-resolution photos, with ~no videos. But I don’t know how big your pile of media data should be. Or how high the resolution. Or how much video. Inventory it. See if it should require that much.

I also don’t know what might have gotten corrupted, if anything. I’ve chased multiple corruptions in iPhone and iPad Photos storage, using cable-sync. (The usual fix is a backup, factory reset, restore, and—because I’m not using iCloud Photos—re-cabling and re-syncing the photos over from the macOS Photos library. Once the corruptions I’ve met have arisen, they only grow.) I’ve also chased a few storage corruptions in iOS itself, unrelated to Photos corruptions. Some of the older versions of iOS became notorious for leaking storage. And I’d expect there are still some other and less-common leaks around. And one of the ways to get into trouble with iOS storage and data corruptions is to run out of storage, too.

Inventory the storage. Backup, reset, and re-load. Look at your total usage. Look at the trends.

In IT, “virus” often means something the speaker either does not understand has happened, or does not wish to explain, or a term used for entertainment or marketing purposes. In various ways, it’s used akin to faeries, gremlins, phlogiston, the bogeyman, and humors.

And to be clear, iPhone malware does exist. It is rare, and targeted. Have you met some here? In Photos storage? Probably not. If you’re an investigative journalist, with access to sensitive or classified or financial information, senior in government or private organization, with access to great wealth, or have interested or annoyed a well-funded entity involved in espionage, the risks here can shift, and you will want to acquire specialized advice tailored to your particular security situation.

treymans333 wrote:

my apps will randomly offload themselves

Settings>General>iPhone Storage>Offload Unused Apps.

If this is enabled, apps will be offloaded if your phone runs low on storage. Not surprising it's happening given the number of photos and videos you have.

, when I download updates it doesn’t seem to effect my phone/my apps are constantly needing updates (I don’t have a a lot of apps on my phone, relatively),

Apps get updated all the time. Your description of this isn't entirely clear.

it seems like my apps will randomly have a different UI- for example: my FB will have a different UI on a day to day basis regardless if I access my FB via browser or on device app,

I'd have to see an example of this. The interface to a service like FB will definitely be different between the app and browser.

my texts and overall service will drastically drop in quality (example: texting another iPhone will randomly send as text messages instead of iMessage/incoming texts from that same number will sometimes come through then delete themselves when I try to send a message).

iMessage relies on both parties having a good data connection. If either you or the recipient don't, it will attempt to send as an SMS message instead of iMessage.

As for texts deleting themselves, if you're referring to a message you received, it is now possible for iOS users to 'unsend' a message. That might explain it.

I’ve also seen an increase in sketchy emails almost like night and day, one day I was getting normal emails- the next day I was receiving dozens of daily sketchy emails (I use gmail).

This has nothing at all do do with the phone. Spam is a fact of life. Gmails spam filters aren't terrible, but they're not perfect by any means, and the spammers are always coming up with new ways to get around them.

Other basic symptoms include the obvious: like inconsistent phone charging and battery usage, some settings will remain unchanged no matter what I do inside the settings app (things like automatic speaker phone when answering incoming calls) etc etc.

Check Settings>Battery>Battery Health. It's entirely likely that the battery needs to be replaced. When it drops to 80%, it needs to be replaced. The setting for optimized battery charging may cause some confusion if you're not consistent about where and when you charge it. Clean Energy Charging can also lead to unexpected behavior.

Any help would greatly be appreciated. Please don’t provide any information that is similar to what a google search will, the typical “10 ways to check if your phone has a virus” or “10 things to do if you phone has a virus” are extremely unhelpful. I’m not opposed to using a paid antivirus service. And lastly I have 4 daily used gmail accounts that are indispensable and I have a suspicion that this is where my virus originated.

Again, there are no known viruses in the wild that can infect an iPhone that has not been jailbroken.

You do not have a virus.

I believe you have 2 probable issues. The first is low storage capacity. You need to manage that. Offload photos and videos to a computer or use iCloud photo library and don't keep full resolution copies of them on your phone. Low storage capacity can also cause a number of odd behaviors. If you run out completely, the phone may stop working entirely until you force it into recovery mode and restore iOS.

The second is potentially a bad battery that has reached the end of useful life. Get it replaced if that's the case.

treymans333 wrote:

I think some old creepy guy had access to my phone and jail broke. Do you think the measles 3k 700 video is enough to occupy 145GB of storage tho? When I compare to other phones they have WAAAAY more photos with a fraction of the GB. Plus sometimes the storage will be a reasonable amount. Other times the storage will just jump to 145GB. I’m like, how did I have 90GB of available storage yesterday, but today I have such little storage I can’t even take a screenshot????

If you think that, and if your passcode was compromised, then the fix is a factory reset, and new credentials.

But I suspect a battery issue might exist here, and insufficient storage, all of which is discussed in previous replies.

iPhone really doesn’t like running out of storage, and corruptions can arise.

You are 100% wrong.

There are no known viruses in the wild that can infect an iPhone that has not been jailbroken. Ditto malware.