Q: Why is my iPhone backup bigger than it's storage?

MagicStick wrote:

 

Hey guys. Can someone explain why this might be happening? I have a 64GB iPhone 6 and my backup for this device is 72GB? My iPhone setting also tell me I still have 13Gb available on my phone

 

Are you using iCloud Photo Library to minimize the physical storage needed to view all of your photos on your iPhone? Check for this by going back 1 page to the Manage Storage page and see if it shows a large portion of your storage being used by iCloud Photo Library. It will be found at the top of the page on the Manage Storage page.

MagicStick wrote:

 

HI Boiss. thanks for reply! Yes  on my device I minimise the storage. But my Phone backup (73GB)  is separate to my photos backup (103GB). My question is why my iPhone backup size is bigger than the available storage on my phone? Strange huh?

Yeah those numbers don't add up at all. It is also true that a single backup will carry up to 3 of the previous versions of that backup as well, but as you are only using 41.6 GB right now, I still don't see that number expanding that much. The files reference each other for what differences in content they hold. That way, you're not creating 1 backup today of 41.6 GB, and an entirely new backup tomorrow of 42.9 GB totaling to 84.5 GB.

As a safeguard, before further troubleshooting, I would create an iTunes backup of your iPhone to start. How to back up your devices using iCloud or iTunes - Apple Support

Do you have any other iOS devices that you can reference the Manage Storage section from to see if the backup size is quoted the same as it is here? If not, you can go to https://www.icloud.com/, sign in, go to Settings and see the size of your backup bar in yellow. If the amount is the same, I'd delete the previous backup, and create a new iCloud backup. (again, only after confirming the completion of your iTunes backup)

See if this doesn't resolve your issue. If not, Contact Apple for support and service - Apple Support. They may need to place your account into troubleshooting mode and have an engineer take a look at it.