HT204570: Get help with your iCloud Photo Library

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wdcarter
Level 1 (12 points)
iPad

Q: iCloud photo library taking up all available iPhone storage

Recently upgraded from iPhoto to iCloud Photo library.  It's great, except that it's now taken up all available storage space on my iPhone and I can't even take additional pictures on it.  If I delete any pics from my iPhone (to try and free up space), it deletes them from my library and from all of my other devices (Mac mini, MBP, iPad, etc.).  I don't want to get rid of the photos, I just want to remove some from the iPhone so that I can actually use the phone.  My iCloud Photo library is rather large, and I pay for additional iCloud storage just to be able to accommodate it, but understandably so, my iPhone storage can't accommodate the full library, and I wouldn't expect it to, either.

iPhone 6 Plus, iOS 8.3, 64 GB

Posted on May 1, 2015 7:20 PM

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wdcarter

Q: iCloud photo library taking up all available iPhone storage

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  • by ZNC1999,

    ZNC1999 ZNC1999 May 1, 2015 7:56 PM in response to wdcarter
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 1, 2015 7:56 PM in response to wdcarter

    I've had a similar problem.  For me the best solution is to save the photos to my Mac, and then delete them from my phone.  This does not however solve the problem with not wanting them to be gone on other devices.  Unfortunately, I do not know of a way to exclude a device from having the photo deleted off of it (Wink*Wink* Apple- iOS 9/OS X 10.11? Cough*Cough*).  Anyway as for saving space, for me, if I turn off iCloud photo library and then turn it back on again, it will make a lot of space open up.  Note: still not total space.  I assume that you have a lot of music/photos/apps or something because I have this problem on my 16 GB iPhone, but I don't see how a 64 Gb iPhone can accidentally run out of room.  In conclusion, try turning off iCloud Photo Library on and off again.  This is my best solution, and it works for me pretty well.  Anyway, I hope this helped.

  • by wdcarter,

    wdcarter wdcarter May 1, 2015 8:07 PM in response to ZNC1999
    Level 1 (12 points)
    iPad
    May 1, 2015 8:07 PM in response to ZNC1999

    Sorry, I should've specified that we're having this problem on our iPhone 5S 16 GB.  Yes, we can turn off iCloud Photo library on the phone and that clears up the storage issue, but then we don't have access to the iCloud Photo library on that particular device.  Isn't the point of iCloud Photo to be able to access all your photos on all your devices?!

  • by ZNC1999,

    ZNC1999 ZNC1999 May 1, 2015 8:31 PM in response to wdcarter
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 1, 2015 8:31 PM in response to wdcarter

    Yeah, If you ask me, Apple needs to figure out a better way of doing this without making your device useless.