still no free storage after activating icloud photo upload (+huge amount of messages)

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Level 1

4 points

still no free storage after activating icloud photo upload (+huge amount of messages)

I have been searching for a long time but i couldn't find an answer so i decided to give this question to the community here.

I dont use many Apps on my iPhone - thats why i decided to get a 16gb iPhone 6s Plus. I think i do know a lot about how iPhones or Macs or computers in general work, but i don't get how the iPhone is managing its storage.

There are a lot of pictures on my iPhone, aswell as on my other apple devices, as i use icloud to upload all of my photos and videos - i even pay for extending my icloud storage to have enough space in the cloud.

I absolutely love the "free up space by uploading photos to icloud if your phone runs out of storage"-function.... Or... Better... I would love it, if it would work the way you would expect it to work. The description of the icloud photo upload option isnt too hard to understand: If you would have almost no free space left on your phone, photos or videos would be uploaded into the cloud to free some space for you.

So, can anyone explain to me, how it is possible, that i have 25 MB (Yes, MB!) left on my iPhone and at the same time it says that the photos and camera app takes 3 GB of storage? It does not seem logic to me.

The problem is - all photos are already uploaded to icloud - i can see them in the photos app of my mac. So there might not be an issue with uploading the files. I suppose the phone just doesn't delete the photos and videos it has already uploaded - as the "free up space by uploading photos to icloud if your phone runs out of storage"-function promised.

What is wrong here? It should just be so easy but.... it just doesn't do what it should do.

Is there any workaround for this problem? I was thinking about just deleting everything on my phone and then get the iphone to only download the thumbnails of every file in icloud - but i am not sure if deleting everything on my phone would delete any photos in icloud as icloud would only keep the files of phones that are connected to it.

A second problem i have found is the messages app. All my saved messages use 2 GB of space. I know, there might be messages for some Months or even years on this phone, but, come on, all this can be stored as a .txt file that wouldnt even use 1MB of storage. I think it might aswell save any file that has been sent to me via imessage... But why doesnt it keep them online - as the icloud photos option should do it... Is there a way to reduce these 2 GB without losing all the messages forever?

Thank You for any responses!

M

Posted on Sep 5, 2016 6:36 AM

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Answer 1

zinacef

Level 10

88,828 points

Sep 5, 2016 9:56 AM in response to soul720

You are mistaking the storing of your iCloud photos as a cloud based system which it is not. iCloud is a mirroring, or syncing, system especially when it comes to your photos, i.e. it syncs all of your photos across all of your devices so that they're immediately available to you.

iCloud photos doesn't allow you to "free up space" as you put it. What it does, through the 'Optimize iPhone Storage' function is to still keep those photos on your device but at a much lower resolution while still keeping the full resolution photo in iCloud. One cannot delete the photo from the iPhone (free up space on the iPhone) and expect it to remain in iCloud because iCloud isn't a hard drive in the sky when it comes to photos/videos.

If that's what you're looking for, then you'll have to consider using a third-party option like Dropbox, Flickr, or Google Photos.

Re: your issue with deleting iMessage cache, see this -- how to recover and permanently delete iMessages

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Answer 2

Sep 5, 2016 10:38 AM in response to soul720

The number of bytes in a photo and especially in a video can be vastly different from one photo or video to another. I would suggest that if you want to delete photos on your device that you have uploaded to iCloud Photo Library, you turn off iCloud Photo Library on the device.

You can then turn on the options for My Photo Stream and iCloud Photo Sharing on your Mac under Photos>Preferences>iCloud, as well as turning on the option to Copy Items to the Photos Library under Photos>Preferences>General.

This will import your photos to your Mac as you take them on the iPhone.

You can leave iCloud Photo Library turned on on the Mac, if you are using other devices or computers, to share the iCloud Photo Library. If you do not have any other devices or computers, then I would suggest turning downloading your Original Photos from iCloud Photo Library to your Mac, then then turning it off. Since iCloud Photo Library is a syncing service rather than an archival service, if you would only be using it on the Mac, it would just add work to your process (unless you are using it to Optimize photos on your Mac to save room as well).

You could then Downgrade your iCloud Storage back to the level you need for Backups and syncing Contacts, Calendars, Notes, etc. (the things you have turned on under Settings>iCloud):

iCloud storage upgrades and downgrades - Apple Support

Cheers,

GB

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Answer 3

soul720 Author

Level 1

4 points

Sep 5, 2016 10:13 AM in response to zinacef

Thank you for your reply.

I know that icloud works that way. But if you put a bit of maths on it, you can see that there must be something wrong.

Having said that the 'Optimize iPhone Storage' function will keep the photos in a much lower resolution -> thats to say as thumbnails that enable you to see alle the photos in the camera roll but only download them in full resolution and mentioning that such a thumbnail (just checked it) has about 50kb, lets see how much space should be used:

I have about 5300 photos. 5300*0,05=265.

That should be 265mb. Even if these thumbnails would be a bit bigger, you wouldnt get nearly as much as 3 GB of photos.

Am i wrong?

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