Phantom photo storage

Question

Level 1

4 points

Phantom photo storage

I use iCloud Photo Library and have been for sometime. Around a month ago I noticed the storage space for photos kept going up and up even though I don’t store any photos in iCloud or on my devices. The amount of storage space doesn’t match up with my iCloud storage as you can see in the attached screen shots.

I tried the trick that other people suggested of manually rolling back the date on my phone and checking the deleted items folder in photos but there is never anything there. How can I have 2 gb worth of photos on my device when there is only 40 mb stored in iCloud?

Please let me know if anyone has seen this before and can offer any suggestions.

iPhone 6s, iOS 11.4.1

Posted on Jul 15, 2018 6:30 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

AppleJoe

Community Manager

Jul 16, 2018 8:00 PM in response to DougK1234

Hello DougK1234,

Thanks for visiting the Apple Support Communities. I am happy to look at your question about your storage with you.

Looking at your screenshots, it looks like there is 1.67 GB of photos on your device, and iCloud Photo Library is turned on, as well as iCloud Photo Sharing. With "Optimize Storage" enabled, the high resolution photos will remain in iCloud, and the iPhone will have the low-res versions. Also, if you downloaded originals or had them on your device before turning off iCloud Photo Library, there may still be some photos or videos on your device.

The first place we want to check is in Photos. In the Albums area, check if there are any photos or vides still on your device. Also check the Recently Deleted album. Remove anything you no longer wish to keep on your device.

Next, I recommend checking this help article for iCloud Photo Sharing: iCloud Photo Sharing

The photos and videos in your shared albums are kept in iCloud, but they don't count against your iCloud storage limit.

You have options to save pictures from iCloud Photo Sharing, and these will take up space on your device, but will not count against your iCloud Storage space as shown in the quote above.

Another possibility is pictures, screenshots, even videos and gifs you send in Messages. Once sent, you delete it from your camera roll, but a version is still saved in Messages in the thread. This would take up space on your device and not show in iCloud. To check this, you can go to Settings > General > iPhone Storage > Messages > Review Large Attachments.

This would also apply to third party chat or messenger apps that you may use as well. Sending large files over those apps may be saved in the thread. Refer to their documentation on how to delete them, as it may be different than the option provided with Messages and Reviewing Large Attachments. Thanks and have a wonderful day.

Reply

Answer 2

DougK1234 Author

Level 1

4 points

Aug 9, 2018 9:35 AM in response to DougK1234

This same problem was affecting my iPad, and my iPhone was at it's storage limit, so I was ready to throw both of them away and start over. As a last effort, I restored my iPad from a backup using iTunes. When my iPad first came back on the storage issue was still there, but after a couple minutes the size of the Photos app magically went down!

I then restored my iPhone from a backup and the same thing happened with Photos, the storage space magically went from 1.9 GB to 159 MB after a couple of minutes. Many other apps also magically shrunk, so now I have 3 GB of free space on my phone, when before the restore I only had 300 MB.

Having to a restore is rather annoying. I wish Apple would allow you to manually reduce the size of apps that are getting too bloated. At any rate, problem solved (for now).

Reply

Answer 3

Eric--F

Community Specialist

Jul 19, 2018 1:44 PM in response to DougK1234

Hello DougK1234,

Thanks for checking out the places offered.

It may be best to contact AppleCare and have them check your storage with you. Use this link to contact AppleCare: Apple - Contact Support

Thanks and have a wonderful day.

Reply

Answer 4

DougK1234 Author

Level 1

4 points

Jul 18, 2018 7:53 AM in response to AppleJoe

Hi Joe_7399,

Thank you for your help with this. I looked at each of your suggestions one by one, and here is what I found:

In Photos, I currently have 13 photos in my "All Photos" album, and 0 in "Recently Deleted". To me that would not come close to accounting for 1.67 GB of photos.
I do have several shared albums in iCloud Photo Sharing that I am subscribed to but I do not save any of the photos that are posted there.
I checked Messages as you suggested, and the Messages app has 27.9 MB of data, 11.5 of which is Conversations and 1.7 MB is Photos. Again, not enough to account for 1.67 GB.
The only other messaging app I use is Google Hangouts. I went through Google's process for deleting any photos in the hangout, but it didn't seem to change anything as the App is taking up 104.3 MB of storage on my phone before and after I deleted any photos.

Is there anywhere else pictures could be hiding that I'm not aware of? I wish the Settings > General > iPhone Storage > Photos menu would give you a breakdown of where it thinks the 1.67 GB is coming from.

iTunes also seems to think there are a lot more photos on my phone when I do a sync. It says there are 1520 photos on my phone taking up 1.59 GB of storage. But where in the heck are all these photos?!?!?! When I click the "Photos" tab on my device in iTunes the only information shown is "iCloud Photos is On".

Please let me know if you have any more suggestions. Thanks!

Reply

Phantom photo storage

Similar questions