Accidentally added photo library to backup

[Rob9874]

My new iPhone 14 PM delivers today. So to prepare, I did one final backup. Took 10 min. Good to go.

But in my settings, I noticed a prompt to prepare for my new phone, including enabling apps that are not included in my backup. So I turned them all on, including Photo Library. Shouldn't have done that.

So it starts another backup, adding the apps I just enabled to be included. I noticed my backup time estimate growing and growing. It got to 1 hour, and I noticed the backup size was 65GB and growing! So I cancelled it. I went back to my backup settings, and there is nothing to remove Photo Library. It says my next backup will be 70GB. It even says "Your photo library is not included here because it is backed up as part of iCloud Photos".

Any idea how to remove Photo Library from my next backup?

 

[dimittar]

On your phone, go to Settings/iCloud/Manage Storage on the top, Backups and choose the backup of your iPhone.

 

[Rob9874]

On your phone, go to Settings/iCloud/Manage Storage on the top, Backups and choose the backup of your iPhone.

Yep, I'm there. And I see a list of apps to deselect from backup. Nothing shows Photo Library. Apps are listed in order of size of backup, all <1GB. Yet my backup is 70GB. Somewhere Photo Library is included with no option to remove it.

 

[0128672]

That's correct that iCloud Backup doesn't include your Photos backup if you have iCloud Photos enabled; that's separate. But maybe you don't have iCloud Photos enabled? If you don't have it enabled, yes it will backup your Photos library that lives on your phone. Based on the message you received in your OP, it sounds like it is enabled.

The backup detail you were looking at should tell you the size of each app. Just to be sure of the path: Settings > [your Apple ID] > iCloud > Device Backups > iCloud Backup > [select your phone] > click on Show All Apps. They're in descending order by size. From that list you should be able to tell what the top five storage gobbling apps are.

What's included (and not included) in an iCloud backup is described in the article below.

What does iCloud back up? - Apple Support

iCloud Backup helps keep your data safe by making a copy of the information on your iPhone and iPad that isn't already synced to iCloud.

support.apple.com