mckee77
Level 1 (5 points)
Photos for Mac

Q: Managing Storage of Photos and Camera

How do you manage Photo & Camera storage on iphone 5S with ios8.1.2?  My phone says I'm using 9.7 GB of storage. I have deleted all but 48 photos, and all videos, but the storage amount does not seem to change. I have rebooted and upgraded to 8.1.2, but nothing has cleared the memory.

iPhone 5s, iOS 8.1.2

Posted on Dec 31, 2014 11:55 AM

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mckee77

Q: Managing Storage of Photos and Camera

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  • Helpful answers

  • by Jason L,

    Jason L Jason L Jan 1, 2015 12:49 PM in response to mckee77
    Community Specialists
    Jan 1, 2015 12:49 PM in response to mckee77

    Hey there mckee77,

    Welcome to Apple Support Communities.

     

    It sounds like your concerned about the amount of storage capacity available and that photos are possibly taking up more space than they should.

    Take a look at the article below, it provides a lot of great information that you can use to determine the amount storage space available and ways to possibly free up more space.

    See how much storage you've used on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch - Apple Support

     

    Also, if you feel like there are orphaned photos on your device that shouldn’t be there, this article may help.

    If you get a "Not enough free space" alert on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support

     

    Take care,

    -Jason

  • by mckee77,

    mckee77 mckee77 Jan 2, 2015 10:50 AM in response to Jason L
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Jan 2, 2015 10:50 AM in response to Jason L

    Thanks Jason, but no luck.  Read both articles, changed how phone was syncing with iTunes and rebooted. No change.  I removed all photos and videos from my iPhone manually.   iTunes thinks there is still 2984 photos on the phone?  I may have to head to the genius bar to see if anyone there has a fix.

  • by wendyfromquincy,

    wendyfromquincy wendyfromquincy Jan 2, 2015 11:41 AM in response to mckee77
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 2, 2015 11:41 AM in response to mckee77

    Please let me know if you find a way to resolve this problem.  I'm having the same exact issue on my new 6.  I've been waiting for 'support chat' for about 15 minutes, after being told it would be a couple of minutes.  Hoping to save a trip to the genius bar (UGH)

  • by jimkraz,

    jimkraz jimkraz Jan 2, 2015 12:45 PM in response to wendyfromquincy
    Level 2 (195 points)
    Jan 2, 2015 12:45 PM in response to wendyfromquincy

    Have you removed them from your "Deleted Photo's" folder too, if not they will remain there for thirty days or deleted manually.

  • by Jason L,

    Jason L Jason L Jan 4, 2015 8:22 AM in response to mckee77
    Community Specialists
    Jan 4, 2015 8:22 AM in response to mckee77

    Thank you for using the Apple Support Community. Due to the nature of your issue or question you may find more information by using another one of Apple's support resources - https://getsupport.apple.com/GetproductgroupList.action.

  • by mckee77,

    mckee77 mckee77 Jan 6, 2015 5:11 PM in response to mckee77
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Jan 6, 2015 5:11 PM in response to mckee77

    This was solved by going to the Genius Bar.  They first tried to "reset" all the settings.  That did not work.

    The solution was 1) back up the phone   2) Reload the iOS    3) Restore the phone from the backup. 

    All is back to normal.  Could have done this myself, but was good to see exactly how its done.  For more info see:

    Use iTunes to restore your iOS device to factory settings - Apple Support

  • by wendyfromquincy,

    wendyfromquincy wendyfromquincy Jan 7, 2015 8:23 AM in response to mckee77
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 7, 2015 8:23 AM in response to mckee77

    Thanks for posting how your issue was resolved.  I did a reset with apple chat support.  It did clear some space, all from my 'other' folder.  However 4.3 gb of space from photos still remained.  It says I have almost 2000 photos on my phone when there are under 200.  Phone support could not figure it out so they sent me to the genius bar.  All they did was blame facebook.  They said their app on the 6 now saves all photos you post on your phone.  Always, so you have duplicates.  They made me feel like I was nuts - saying I was the ONLY person they have heard this from.  I don't buy it because 1) even in duplicate I would not have that many photos posted in the two months I have owned the phone.  2) my daughter is having the same exact photo issue and rarely uses facebook - she's 19.  3) if it were the case the problem would be widespread.

    So I do have more space on my phone, however it's till bugging me, 2000 photos?  I have the bare bones amount of apps I had on my anceint iphone 4 and I DID store tons of photos on there.  Whats wrong with this picture? 

    I've always been pro-mac, however this maybe my last iphone.  It takes up WAY too much of my time trying to figure out this stupid crap.

  • by mckee77,

    mckee77 mckee77 Jan 8, 2015 6:42 PM in response to wendyfromquincy
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Jan 8, 2015 6:42 PM in response to wendyfromquincy

    Wendy,

    If Apple reset the phone to "Factory Settings" first, then you should have no photos and no apps.  Then if you do a restore, it should restore all apps, contacts, emails etc.  It should only restore the photos you have saved in the last backup.     At least that's the way it should work.  I did have to re-install all of my music though.  I don't even have Facebook installed, so that was not causing me a problem. Maybe they did not take the phone back to Factory settings?

  • by Prthwy,

    Prthwy Prthwy Apr 23, 2015 5:27 AM in response to wendyfromquincy
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 23, 2015 5:27 AM in response to wendyfromquincy

    I had encountered the exact scenario but did not want to go through a complete reset. The following steps resolved the issue.

    1. Go to settings

    2. Tap Photos & Camera

    3. Enable iCloud Photo Library and disable it again.

     

    Hope this helps  

  • by LosGuys,

    LosGuys LosGuys May 28, 2015 9:37 PM in response to mckee77
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 28, 2015 9:37 PM in response to mckee77

    This was driving me nuts - I had over 10GB of mystery space even after I deleted large files.  Turns out you need to purge them from the "deleted files" folder in the camera app.

     

    Symptom - on the phone the "Photos & Camera" storage usage was huge (over 11GB), but on iTunes it was only 3.5GB (which was right) and the "Other" category was massive.

     

    Stupid answer, but hey, it worked.  You'd think Apple would be considerate enough to not count things you clearly deleted as space, and just overwrite... but again.. it worked.   And I didn't throw the phone across the room.

     

    Hope this helps someone!

    JD

     

    SO - JUST TO BE CRYSTAL CLEAR:

    If you happened to see "oh, my photos (specifically videos) are taking up too much space", and you (wisely) delete them, you have to go delete them A SECOND TIME from the "Deleted" folder in the camera app.

  • by Skim2000,

    Skim2000 Skim2000 Feb 13, 2016 10:27 AM in response to Prthwy
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 13, 2016 10:27 AM in response to Prthwy

    can vouch that this works, except I added a few extra steps:

    -go to settings

    -find photos and camera

    -disable icloud photo library

    -disable photo stream

    -and if you want to save space filming videos in the future, scroll down to camera and change the video quality to 720fps

    I took these steps and freed 9GB of my space