I have used the Apple Photos app and iTunes to sync all photos & videos across, yet my iPad shows less space being used than on my Mac. Does this mean the photos on my iPad are compressed in some way?
I had planned to use my iPad Pro as my main device in the future and it is worrying me that the photos stored on it may be reduced in quality!
iPad Pro Wi-Fi, iOS 11.3.1, 10.5” 256GB
Yes, iTunes is reducing the size of the photos synced to iOS devices. It is creating special previews of the edited versions of the photos. It depends on the type of the device, how much the photos will be compressed during the sync.
I had planned to use my iPad Pro as my main device in the future and it is worrying me that the photos stored on it may be reduced in quality!
That not a good idea to sync the photos to your iPad using iTunes, if you want to keep them there as the main photo library. There is no easy way to get the photos back from the iPad to the Mac, because the synced photos are not in your camera roll. You would have to use email or air drop to send them back to the Mac. You even cannot delete any of the synced photos from your iPad other than syncing them again. So you need to keep the photos on your computer to be able to sync again and to create a backup of the photos with Time Machine.
If you want to transfer the originals to the iPad in full quality, use iCloud Photo Library, see: Keep your photos safely stored and up to date on all of your devices - Apple Support
Yes, iTunes is reducing the size of the photos synced to iOS devices. It is creating special previews of the edited versions of the photos. It depends on the type of the device, how much the photos will be compressed during the sync.
I had planned to use my iPad Pro as my main device in the future and it is worrying me that the photos stored on it may be reduced in quality!
That not a good idea to sync the photos to your iPad using iTunes, if you want to keep them there as the main photo library. There is no easy way to get the photos back from the iPad to the Mac, because the synced photos are not in your camera roll. You would have to use email or air drop to send them back to the Mac. You even cannot delete any of the synced photos from your iPad other than syncing them again. So you need to keep the photos on your computer to be able to sync again and to create a backup of the photos with Time Machine.
If you want to transfer the originals to the iPad in full quality, use iCloud Photo Library, see: Keep your photos safely stored and up to date on all of your devices - Apple Support
Wow, that is really quite worrying given the way Apple market the iPad Pro as a desktop/laptop replacement.
Of course, the simple solution is to use iCloud Photo Library in this case (as you’ve pointed out), but there is no way I’d consider using iCloud (or any cloud service for that matter) given that my photo library is >200GB and growing. I imagine my next move will be to abandon Apple Photos altogether and use my NAS as my main photo storage device. A real shame though.
Thank you for your response/advice. Much appreciated.
You are welcome.
The iPad is fine for office applications - word processing, spreadsheets, and similar. And I hope it will get better for working with photo libraries. Right now, the only convenient way to work with photos on an iPad or iPhone is iCloud Photo Library. If you do not want that, you can use the iPad for browsing the photos you sync to the device with iTunes, but keep the main Photos Library on a computer.
Why do my photos use more storage space on my Mac than on my iPad?
