Photos isn't adjusting the amount of storage space it uses when my phone is full. iPhone 13 mini, 128 GB, iOS 26.2.
I'm at 127.35 GB (of 128 GB) used and photos is using 26.5 GB. It's been like this for months. I wiped my phone and reinstalled everything from scratch to see if that might help, but I'm having the same issue. iCloud Photos is on and "Optimize iPhone storage" is on.
Any ideas on how I can fix this?
Thank you!
iPhone 13 mini
Sandbox Wizard wrote: … I'm at 127.35 GB (of 128 GB) used
Wow--you haven't allowed enough room in your phone for it to do much of anything. You would have to delete hundreds to thousands of pictures to make a dent in the storage, and the phone may not have enough room to do anything with them, anyway. With your phone this full, even deleting things becomes problematic. You should keep at least 10%, 13 GB, of your storage free, using no more than 115 GB. Because there is so little room, you may need to start by getting rid of some small things first.
You have lots of apps-- they take up a lot of room-- not just the apps, but the data for them as well. Pick some apps you don't use much and remove those. Do you have files in the Files app?
My phone's Photos is Optimized, and 17000 pictures takes up less than 10GB. To take advantage of optimization, you need to get some free space.
How had you "reinstalled everything from scratch?" If you have solid backups, that may help.
Sandbox Wizard wrote: … I'm at 127.35 GB (of 128 GB) used
Wow--you haven't allowed enough room in your phone for it to do much of anything. You would have to delete hundreds to thousands of pictures to make a dent in the storage, and the phone may not have enough room to do anything with them, anyway. With your phone this full, even deleting things becomes problematic. You should keep at least 10%, 13 GB, of your storage free, using no more than 115 GB. Because there is so little room, you may need to start by getting rid of some small things first.
You have lots of apps-- they take up a lot of room-- not just the apps, but the data for them as well. Pick some apps you don't use much and remove those. Do you have files in the Files app?
My phone's Photos is Optimized, and 17000 pictures takes up less than 10GB. To take advantage of optimization, you need to get some free space.
How had you "reinstalled everything from scratch?" If you have solid backups, that may help.
Sandbox Wizard wrote: When I "reinstalled everything from scratch", I factory reset my phone and then reinstalled all my apps from the app store. I didn't use any backups
So where did the pictures come from? Did you start with an empty Photos Library and let it fill from iCloud? With Optimize turned on, that should have loaded optimized versions. Even with "Download Originals" turned on, preview versions load before originals.
How big is your Library at iCloud? 1.5 TB?? You may need to get a bigger iPhone…
Thank you for your reply Richard. I try to keep 10-15 GB free, I was around 110 GB at one point. I haven't added any new apps in a while and Photos has grown to fill the remaining space. My understanding on "optimized storage" is that
Photos will reduce it's usage as your phone fills up.
I have 150,000 pictures in my library. I have the 2 TB iCloud plan.
I deleted a few apps today and got down to 122 GB used. Photos is sitting at 26.48 GB (went down by 0.02 GB).
I have 18 GB of files in iCloud Drive.
When I "reinstalled everything from scratch", I factory reset my phone and then reinstalled all my apps from the app store. I didn't use any backups because I didn't want to reintroduce any settings that might have caused the issue (either because the setting was corrupted or doing what it was supposed to do and I had it set wrong).
Photos app not optimizing storage on iPhone 13 mini
