iPhone will not optimize photos—any way to force?

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Level 1

17 points

iPhone will not optimize photos—any way to force?

Is there any way to prompt or force the iPhone to go through the "optimization" process, and delete photos and videos that are already backed up to iCloud?

I am using an iPhone 7 running the most recent version of iOS (11.0.3).
I have already turned on Photos optimization in the iCloud settings.
I have a 2 TB iCloud account, of which only 10% is being used. (So there's plenty of space up there!)
My iPhone is 95% full according to General > Storage, and I've started getting the "no space" error message.
I've toggled on/off the optimization setting in iCloud, and rebooted the phone.
I've made sure low battery mode is turned off.
I'm plugged in and on home Wi-Fi.

Despite all this, the iPhone is not optimizing, and photos are taking up 65GB. Is there any way to force it to optimize? What am I missing?

iPhone 7, iOS 11.0.3

Posted on Oct 16, 2017 11:12 AM

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Answer 1

Oct 24, 2017 8:00 AM in response to LinusMoore

I am having the same issue. This seems to have come around since the 11.0.3 update.

I have a 7 Plus 256 GB. I have 2 TB on my iCloud with only 771 gb used. I also have "Optimize iPhone Storage" on.

My phone just started to pop up consistently after the update that it is full. On the General/iPhone Storage screen it is telling me I have 248.5 of 256 used. In the bar graphic, it looks like it is half apps and the rest is photos but down under the list of apps it says Photos is 215.02 GB.

It almost seems like it is just filling up any extra space with photos until it is full. So deleteing more items just causes the photos to get bigger.

I called apple and after getting through the first 2 people who kept telling me I need to delete more apps and that my photos library was too big they finally sent me to a senior tech person. He immediately understood what I was saying and knew something was wrong had me try and couple things and then suggested me to reset my phone and restore from a backup. So i did that after everything redownloaded it is working fine again. My phone as back to 46.7 GB of 256 GB Used and my Photos are only 8.16 GB (rather than 215 GB.

I would try a reset and see what happens.

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Answer 2

LinusMoore Author

Level 1

17 points

Oct 19, 2017 2:09 PM in response to LinusMoore

Thanks for the response, Eric. Is there something I should do to "reset" it then? The problem is that I now constantly receive the "iPhone storage full" dialogue box, and yet no offloading is occurring. Still a full 65GB of photos, despite no free space on the device.

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Answer 3

Eric Root

Level 10

685,191 points

Oct 19, 2017 2:31 PM in response to LinusMoore

You are welcome. If you open the Photos app, are you seeing full resolution photos or thumbnail type photos. If thumbnail, optimization has or has started to take place. The only thing I can suggest is to try going to Settings/Your Name/iCloud and recycle the Optimization switch again.

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Answer 4

LinusMoore Author

Level 1

17 points

Oct 22, 2017 9:39 PM in response to Eric Root

Eric-

Yes, it does seem like some of the photos are not full resolution, so at least some of them are being offloaded. I do find it odd that the app only leaves me with under 2% of my memory available (about 2GB out of 128), but I guess that is what the Apple designers intended.

Thanks again for your help on this one.

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Answer 5

LinusMoore Author

Level 1

17 points

Oct 24, 2017 5:52 PM in response to techsponge

Thanks, techsponge. That describes exactly my situation as well. The iPhone has optimized only a small portion of the photos. As a result, the Photos app fills up as much as possible, eating up any extra free space. Out of 128GB, I have 64GB of photos (with more than a TB of available space for offloading in iCloud). I will try the reset option, as it sounds like it worked for you. Thanks again!

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Answer 6

Eric Root

Level 10

685,191 points

Oct 16, 2017 1:31 PM in response to LinusMoore

It will only start optimizing when free space is needed on the device. There is no way to force it to Optimize.

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Answer 7

Eric Root

Level 10

685,191 points

Oct 23, 2017 10:05 AM in response to LinusMoore

You are welcome.

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