Why is my photo storage so high on iPhone? Why does photos take so much storage even with iCloud? Read this guide to find the answer.
Why are my photos taking up so much storage on iPhone?
I keep receiving low space warnings and my iPhone is slowing down due to lack of space. Any ideas on how I can force photos to take less space?
- Question from Apple Community
Why does photos take so much storage even with iCloud?
I have paid for 200GB of iCloud storage to free up space on my 64GB iPhone. My phone keeps telling me that it is low on storage and it shows that 40GB is being taken up by photos, even though they are supposedly on iCloud. I thought the iCloud was designed to free up storage on your actual device?
- Question from Reddit
With Apple’s advanced camera, we can easily take great photos. It is one of the significant benefits of owning an iPhone. However, these high-quality photos may take up more space than you think, leaving you confused: Why is my photo storage so high on iPhone? An even more puzzling situation is that when photos are stored in iCloud, they still take up a lot of space on the iPhone.
In such cases, if we do nothing, iPhone storage will be full one day due to these messy photos. Don’t worry too much! Here in this guide, I’ll explain why does photos take so much storage on iPhone and the solution to reduce photo storage.
If you like to record important moments in daily life, there are probably thousands of photos stored on your iPhone. However, nowadays, as the quality of photos has increased, the size of photos has also increased. In addition, sometimes, we try several times to get the perfect composition or the right light, which leads to a lot of duplicate photos.
There are a few methods that can help you clear photo storage on iPhone. For example, delete unwanted photos, change the format of photos, or save photos to another location. You can choose one or more methods to lower your photo storage according to your situation.
Tip 1. Clear Recently Deleted album
When you tap the Trash icon to delete unwanted photos, they are not really deleted from iPhone. The deleted photos will be moved to Recently Deleted album, from where you can choose to restore the photos to the album or delete them permanently.
The photos in the Recently Deleted album will be deleted automatically after 30 days. However, those photos are still in your storage. That’s the main reason why you find iPhone storage full after deleting photos. To free photo storage on iPhone, you can clean the album by yourself.
Go to Photos app > Tap Albums at the bottom > Choose Recently Deleted > Tap the Select button at the top > Choose Delete All to remove all photos or you may choose to delete selected photos.
Tip 2. Optimize iPhone photos
Since iOS 11, Apple introduced High-Efficiency formats to help users save iPhone storage. Compared with the old JPEG, the HEIC format will take up much less space while retaining quality. Although HEIC is not very compatible with all platforms and apps, it is indeed a good way to lower your photo storage.
You can go to Settings > Camera > Formats and choose High Efficiency option to change the format to reduce photo storage on iPhone.
Tip 3. Delete duplicate photos
Duplicate photos can occupy a lot of storage space on iPhone. You can find and delete duplicate photos on iPhone to clear photo storage. You can go to Photos app and find duplicate photos by category. Usually, similar photos are taken at the same time or in the same place.
If you have a large photo library, you may let a third-party tool help you find duplicate photos. FoneTool is recommended here. It’s one professional iOS data management tool for Windows users. Its Photo Deduplication feature can quickly find all duplicate and similar photos on iPhone.
Step 1. Click the download button to get FoneTool.
Step 2. Connect iPhone to computer via USB cable > Choose Photo Deduplication.
Step 3. Choose Scan iOS Device option.
Step 4. Set the filter date range > Click Start scanning and wait for the process to complete.
Step 5. Select the photos you want to delete and click the Delete button to make it.
Tip 4. Backup iPhone photos to computer/USB drive
Compared to the storage of the iPhone, the storage space of the computer is much larger. You can use a professional iPhone transfer tool called AOMEI FoneBackup to transfer photos from iPhone to computer to free up space.
You can connect iPhone to computer > go to iPhone DCIM folder > find needed pictures > copy and paste them to another folder on computer or a USB flash drive. However, all the photos are randomly stored in subfolders, you may need to open the folder one by one to find the photos you need. It’s not a good choice if you want to transfer photo albums from iPhone to PC. In such cases, you can rely on FoneTool to help you make it.
Step 1. Download, install, and launch AOMEI FoneBackup.
Step 2. Plug in your iPhone and click the Transfer to Computer option.
Step 3. Select the photos you want to transfer and click OK.
Step 4. Choose a storage path to save the pictures and click the Start Transfer button.
Now you can delete photos to clear photo storage on your iPhone.
You have turned on iCloud Photos to free up storage on your actual device. However, you find that the photos are still taking up a lot of space. Why do photos take so much storage even with iCloud? Well, probably because the Optimize iPhone Storage option has not been enabled.
When you find photos occupying a lot of space even with iCloud, you can try these solutions to reduce photo storage.
Tip 1. Turn on Optimize iPhone Storage
When Optimize iPhone Storage is enabled, your full-resolution photos are automatically replaced with smaller, device-sized versions. That’s to say, your photos on iPhone will use reduced quality and take less space. The full-resolution copies are stored in iCloud and you can download them anytime.
Go to Settings > your account > iCloud > Photos and choose Optimize iPhone Storage option.
Tip 2. Force restart your iPhone
A simple restart may help fix temporary hiccups that cause photos to take so much storage even with iCloud issue. The steps to perform a force restart depend on the iPhone model you are using.
Tip 3. Update iOS
The outdated operating system has various issues and that’s why Apple always advises users to update iOS to the latest version. The photos take so much storage even with iCloud issue may be caused by glitches or bugs. You can go to Settings > General > Software Update to check whether there is an update available.
That’s all about why is my photo storage so high on iPhone. Photos can occupy a lot of space and you can try methods in this guide to clear photo storage. If all methods fail to reduce photo storage on iPhone, you may Apple support for help. You can either do this online or go to the nearest Apple Store.
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