Please Help me backup and delete my photos and videos.

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Level 1

9 points

Please Help me backup and delete my photos and videos.

I have iCloud and have optimize storage selected. Even with this, my Photos and Camera is taking up 56.4 GB. I bought the 128GB iPhone 6 Plus because I knew I take a lot of photos and video. I thought using iCloud and optimizing the storage would help.

Clearly not. I'm going on an extended trip soon and want to have as much free space as possible. I would really like to just backup all my photos and video to my computer and wipe them from my iPhone and iCloud.

What is the best way of doing this? Please help! I'm going crazy here. Windows import photos and video keeps crashing and my understanding of the iCloud app is that it would continue to sync with my iPhone even when installed on Windows, meaning after I download everything, I couldn't go and delete it all again without them being deleted on my computer.

Also I'm afraid with Windows import, if it would ever decide to work, I'd only get copies of the thumbnails.

For all Apple's simplicity, iCloud is NOT one of them.

Many thanks!

null-OTHER, iOS 8

Posted on Aug 2, 2016 5:04 PM

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Answer 1

Rysz

Level 8

44,455 points

Aug 2, 2016 6:32 PM in response to dvsdanny

From what you're describing, iCloud Photo Library is working exactly as it should. It's taking up 56 GB of storage on your device, because you have plenty of free storage left. The Optimization will kick in automatically when you'll start using up more of the storage for other files.

What you do need to fix, is your computer, so you can download all your images and videos at full resolution and make a proper backup.

Photos User / Help guide:

https://help.apple.com/photos/mac/1.0/?lang=en

iMore has a very detailed, well illustrated article on iCloud Photo Library:

http://www.imore.com/how-use-icloud-photo-library-ultimate-guide

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