Question on iCloud "Optimize Storage" for photos

fjon

I've a question on how this feature works. I know in theory it's supposed to keep all your photos on iCloud, and when you then want to view a specific photo it will download a copy to your phone.

I'm wondering though what happens that downloaded copy? When does that get re-uploaded to iCloud?

I have the feature turned on, but still have a large photo library that's taking up most of my storage because there are so many local copies stored on the phone. I would love to have only my most recent photos taken stored locally, and all the older ones on iCloud.

Thanks in advance.

The high horse brigade

fjon wrote: »

I've a question on how this feature works. I know in theory it's supposed to keep all your photos on iCloud, and when you then want to view a specific photo it will download a copy to your phone.

I'm wondering though what happens that downloaded copy? When does that get re-uploaded to iCloud?

I have the feature turned on, but still have a large photo library that's taking up most of my storage because there are so many local copies stored on the phone. I would love to have only my most recent photos taken stored locally, and all the older ones on iCloud.

Thanks in advance.

Downloading the photo from the cloud does not remove the copy in the cloud. No need to re upload

fjon

The high horse brigade wrote: »

Downloading the photo from the cloud does not remove the copy in the cloud. No need to re upload

Understood, I don't want to remove it from the cloud, I want to remove the local copy from my phone to free up space. I guess I should have phrased it differently - when is the local copy from my phone deleted once I have downloaded it?

Dardania

It seems to do it by itself, to optimise space (hence the name) - if you're tight on space on your phone, you'll notice newer & newer photos are moved to the icloud i.e. less than a weeks worth.

The high horse brigade

fjon wrote: »

Understood, I don't want to remove it from the cloud, I want to remove the local copy from my phone to free up space. I guess I should have phrased it differently - when is the local copy from my phone deleted once I have downloaded it?

See this
https://www.cnet.com/uk/how-to/tricks-to-free-up-space-on-your-iphone/

Phonicks

Its a very messy feature, as you will still run out of space, and its now much harder to sort, as the photos on the phone are of poor quality so not worth importing.

you have to install icloud and download all the photos which is a crap system as you have to manually click to download, and if you just download all everytime it will double up, then tripple etc

Easiest method that i found was to turn off all icloud photo backup and plug your phone into your computer every few weeks and import all and tick box to delete imported photos, just like you would do with any digital camera

fjon

Dardania wrote: »

It seems to do it by itself, to optimise space (hence the name) - if you're tight on space on your phone, you'll notice newer & newer photos are moved to the icloud i.e. less than a weeks worth.

This is what I hoped would happen, but my library currently takes up 4GB (before turning on it was less than 1GB).

Phonicks wrote:

Easiest method that i found was to turn off all icloud photo backup and plug your phone into your computer every few weeks and import all and tick box to delete imported photos, just like you would do with any digital camera

This is how I used to do it, but was hoping using iCloud would simplify things a bit.

Sad Professor

fjon wrote: »

This is what I hoped would happen, but my library currently takes up 4GB (before turning on it was less than 1GB).

Is that a problem? Are you running low on space?

fjon

Sad Professor wrote: »

Is that a problem? Are you running low on space?

Absolutely, that's one reason I used the feature and bought the extra storage. I currently have about 400mb left on the phone after trying all other storage saving tips I could find.

Sad Professor

In my experience, if you have enough space it will download everything. I expect it will start deleting photos from local storage when it needs that space. So unless you are getting low space warnings I wouldn't worry about it.

fjon

Sad Professor wrote: »

In my experience, if you have enough space it will download everything. I expect it will start deleting photos from local storage when it needs that space. So unless you are getting low space warnings I wouldn't worry about it.

I am getting the messages regularly - I was unable to take new photos, download podcasts, receive WhatsApp messages.
I was hoping the phone would be smart enough to start deleting photos at this stage, but it hasn't.

Dardania

If you have 4gb, up from 1gb, it sounds like maybe there is abottleneck somewhere. Do you leave the phone plugged in at night, with wifi on, so that it can synchronise?

How are you on icloud space - enough spare space?

My wife recently moved from android to iphone, and we found that we had to pay for 1 month of larger capacity icloud storage, in order to give enough space for things to balance out.Works perfectly now

Phonicks

Have you tried the google photos app, you can store upto 15gb of photos at original quality and can then delete them from the phone and still view them in the google photos app, and can download them to a pc (in a large zip file)