iCloud photo storage limit?

Question

iCloud photo storage limit?

I have 13GB of Photos/videos on my iPhone. Only 5GB is uploaded to iCloud photo library even though I have 200GB of storage space on iCloud. How can I get more of the photos to iCloud photo library without just doing a separate backup? I do maintain redundant backups anyway, but was hoping there was more seamless approach. My iPhone also has limited space since the Photos seemingly can't get uploaded and so they appear to remain stored locally on the iPhone as opposed to online in iCloud and available for download to view them. Any input is appreciated. Thanks.

Posted on Jul 27, 2015 6:49 AM

Reply

Answer 1

dowder46

Level 1

8 points

Dec 22, 2016 1:39 PM in response to Eric Root

Thanks, but none of that works. It's as if no matter how much extra storage you buy, you can never store more than 5 gigs in photos. Is it just me? Or is it the same for everyone?

Reply

Answer 2

Jul 27, 2015 6:59 AM in response to saunders.justin

Are the photos still uploading to the cloud or does it give you any reason why it won't upload more than 5 GB.

Reply

Answer 3

Aug 18, 2015 12:50 PM in response to saunders.justin

Thanks for responding. As for stating a reason, not really, though I guess I'm not entirely sure what you mean. On my phone if I go to Settings -> iCloud, the Photos tab is switched "on". Under that Photos section, I have "iCloud Photo Library toggled on (green), Optimize iPhone storage is checked and Upload to my Photo Stream is also toggled on.

If I go through the Storage -> Manage storage under the same iCloud menu I see the Photo library occupies 5.1GB (179 GB available). The backup of my iPhone occupies 13.9GB (12.1 GB of which is photos). Selecting the iPhoto library lists that I have "1340 photos and 87 videos stored in iCloud. Your photos and videos are using 5.1GB". My phone currently has 3,372 photos /videos total.

I don't see anyway to partition the available 179GB so that I can have all photos in the photo library. It is quite a hassle since I am routinely getting messages saying that my phone is almost full. I thought the point of the iCloud photo Library was to optimize the storage capacity of the iPhone so that if I took more pictures, they could be stored on iCloud. Perhaps I'm not understanding how it works, but as it stands,the extra 179GB of space doesn't seem to be doing very much to cut down on the space occupied by photos on my phone.

Any thoughts would be much appreciated. Thanks.

Justin

Reply

Answer 4

Aug 19, 2015 1:12 AM in response to saunders.justin

A lot of that doesn't make sense to me I'm afraid.

Photos aren't backed up if you have iCloud photo library enabled, where do you get this 12.1 GB figure from.

Is there still an upload in progress.

Reply

Answer 5

Aug 20, 2015 1:13 PM in response to Winston Churchill

Yes, unfortunately it doesn't make much sense to me either. The 12.1 GB is the amount of current space on my iPhone that is taken up by pictures. I manually backed up the iPhone to iCloud just for some redundancy as I typically backup my iPhone and iPad to a local external drive. At any rate, it does not appear that I have any upload in progress. I suppose I will have to go garner some face time at the apple store to sort out why the rest of the photos aren't being uploaded to iCloud photo library. Thanks for your help.

Reply