Why is my iPhone's 'Photos' section taking up 18GB despite low-quality media and iCloud storage?

I've had my iPhone for less than a year, I have 500 photos and 60 videos (low quality everything) and I saw that friends of mine with twice as many photos and videos, had less space occupied. I have transferred all my photos and videos to the ICloud (taking 2.6gb) but the "Photos" section in the Storage still occupies 18gb and I don't know where it's from, can someone help me clean it or tell me what's going on?


[Re-Titled by Moderator]

iPhone 15, iOS 18

Posted on Mar 1, 2025 3:40 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Mar 1, 2025 7:02 AM

I'm not sure what you mean by "I have transferred all my photos and videos to the ICloud." Are you saying that you exported them to iCloud Drive? Did you delete these pictures from Photos? Transferring pictures to iCloud Drive doesn't necessarily remove them from the iPhone, and you might have two of everything,


The way most people save Photos space on their phones is to use "Optimize Storage" for Photos.  Is that what you're dong? If you set a device to "Optimize Storage," then Photos may store only smaller images on the device and rely on iCloud to keep the full sized images. So, if Optimize is chosen, and you want to magnify a picture to see more detail, Photos will reach out to iCloud to get a full sized image for you to zoom in on. It's the same for editing or printing or anything that demands the full picture. Your optimized Library may take up less than 20% of the space of a fully downloaded Library. Optimize may remove full-sized files from the device, but it may keep full sized files until the space is actually needed,


You don't say just how much storage you have on your phone and at iCloud. Numbers would be helpful in helping us understand what you're saying. For instance, my phone says that I have 40 GB used of 128 GB. My iCloud offers storage info, as well, for iCloud Drive, iCloud Photos, and iCloud total storage. What is yours?



1 reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Mar 1, 2025 7:02 AM in response to P4V3L_

I'm not sure what you mean by "I have transferred all my photos and videos to the ICloud." Are you saying that you exported them to iCloud Drive? Did you delete these pictures from Photos? Transferring pictures to iCloud Drive doesn't necessarily remove them from the iPhone, and you might have two of everything,


The way most people save Photos space on their phones is to use "Optimize Storage" for Photos.  Is that what you're dong? If you set a device to "Optimize Storage," then Photos may store only smaller images on the device and rely on iCloud to keep the full sized images. So, if Optimize is chosen, and you want to magnify a picture to see more detail, Photos will reach out to iCloud to get a full sized image for you to zoom in on. It's the same for editing or printing or anything that demands the full picture. Your optimized Library may take up less than 20% of the space of a fully downloaded Library. Optimize may remove full-sized files from the device, but it may keep full sized files until the space is actually needed,


You don't say just how much storage you have on your phone and at iCloud. Numbers would be helpful in helping us understand what you're saying. For instance, my phone says that I have 40 GB used of 128 GB. My iCloud offers storage info, as well, for iCloud Drive, iCloud Photos, and iCloud total storage. What is yours?



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Why is my iPhone's 'Photos' section taking up 18GB despite low-quality media and iCloud storage?

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