Q: Memory use

So what should we do when we backup and try to restore only to be told we don't have enough memory to do the restore?

No doubt my memory has been lost in photos which I've been fighting with for months now.  After moving to Yosemite it looked like iPhoto was gone and I had to move to photos.  Or at least that is what it looked like since I couldn't find iphoto and an app called photos wanted to convert my iphoto library to photos.  Of course that failed which has caused me to attempt to make a new library in photos.  Of course I've heard in the meantime that iphotos still exists but it sure sounds like it's going away.  So I attempted to make a new photos library and discovered with a large library things get "optimized" on my iphone.  I guess developers at apple never leave the nest so they could not imagine a lack of internet connection means those thumbnails look like crap when the original can't be downloaded.  Being frustrated so often trying to access pictures on my iphone only to have to wait to see a picture because of a poor connection or lack thereof I thought if I scaled the size of the pictures down to a smaller size I could do a full download to my iphone.  Well I now have a new photos library that has all my photos and is in fact quite small at 6 gig.  Should be plenty of room on my iphone.  If only I actually had the space available which is why I tried to do a backup restore as suggested.

So how do I recover my memory?  I've looked in the settings and adding up all the usage should leave lots of space.  Connected to my imac for backup shows lots of "other", which I'm assuming is lost.  Any suggestions would be appreciated.

I also wish the photos developers would realize requiring a connection to the cloud isn't always possible when one wants to look at their pictures.  My old iphoto library had twice the number of pictures and space to spare.  I see no reason to download a full resolution picture to an iphone when it isn't needed.  Making me downrez my pictures is unreasonable in order to get my library on my iphone.  Of course I see even doing what I did I still don't have things downloaded yet because I still see thumbnails before getting a download.  I'm hoping the full downrezed pictures will stay on my iphone.

I do like the new organizational features in photos.  Iphoto was a pain to use when one had many albums that lost the hierarchy when moved to the iphone.  I would not like going back to iphoto unless the hierarchy is now retained on moving the library to the iphone.  The syncing with my imac is also nice. 

Hi stevebangert, it sounds like when you se up Photos for Mac you set up iCloud photo library. I would check out iCloud Photo Library FAQ - Apple Support . You can turn off iCloud Photo Library if you don't want to have to wait for photos to load whenever you go to view them iCloud Photo Library may not be the best option for you. As far as your storage issue goes what I have done in the past is do a backup through iTunes using Apple article HT1766 and restore my device as new using HT1414. One restored as new you can restore from the iTunes backup you made. This has usual resolved the problem. If the issue continues then you will need to look for the source of the data or start from scratch and only bring over what you stored in iCloud. The "Other" basically consists of anything that doesn't fit into the apps, audio, movies, and documents.

Thanks for the reply.  I'm not sure I completely understand how photos works with the cloud and what happens if I have icloud turned off.  I'm including some of the icloud faq here:

"If you turn on Optimize [device] Storage, iCloud Photo Library will automatically manage the size of your library on your device, so you can make the most of your device's storage and access more photos than ever. All of your original, full-resolution photos and videos are stored in iCloud while device-size versions are kept on your device. You can download the original photos and videos over Wi-Fi or cellular when you need them.

If you turn on Download Originals, iCloud Photo Library will keep your original, full-resolution photos and videos in iCloud and on your device. Download Originals is the default setting for iOS devices with the free 5 GB storage plan and for all Mac devices."

According to the faq if I turn on :Optimize Storage"  I will have device-size versions on my device.  That sounds like more than a crude thumbnail.  It also does not mention the need to download anything to view the picture.  What I get is a crude thumbnail that downloads something that when done looks fine.  A full version is downloaded on demand which to my mind does not mean when I want to look at it.

As I mentioned originally my attempt to eliminate these downloads over the thumbnails was to build a new library using downrezed jpg's that had also been optimized with an app called jpgmini.  I still see the same behavior even though I now have "Download originals" set.

What's going to happen when I turn off the cloud.  WIll I need to connect my iphone to my imac to get the photos library loaded on my phone?