For those with a bigger photo library than phone storage...

[Jdhommert]

How do you mange that and how well does it work? I need to know if this issue is fixed to pick the right amount of storage!!

I have a 1.1TB photo library. Lot of years/videos. This has been my history for several years:
Toggle on download and keep photos>
iPhone downloads until its 100% full and unusable>
toggle on optimize iCloud library>
iPhone instantly deletes every single picture on it leaving a TON of storage empty I cant even use for my photos>
Rinse and repeat every year.

However I tried it again last week and it downloaded an extra 100gb of photos....and then stopped with 75gb free. Nothing I've done including a hard reset has made it continue to download like it always has. If this issue is fixed now where I can actually use the storage I pay for, I'll gladly pay for a higher storage iPhone. If it's still all or nothing, I'm going base storage.

 

[eyoungren]

I'm going to say right at the start that I get the max capacity offered by Apple any time I upgrade. Currently, that's the 512GB iPhone 11 Pro Max. I am not upgrading to the 16 series.

That said, I don't use iCloud to manage my photos and that's why I am responding to your post. I use Dropbox. It has a feature that automatically uploads any new images taken on my iPhone. That puts these images on to every computer/device I have that is running Dropbox. In the case of computers, it also means that those photos get backed up nightly because the Dropbox folder is part of the backup. Periodically I dump all the photos in the Camera Uploads folder (on Dropbox) to my NAS.

You can also do the same with Google Photos if Dropbox isn't your thing.

Lastly, I do have a 2TB iCloud subscription. It's shared with my family and yes, all the photos on my iPhone are backed up to iCloud simply because I did set it up that way. But I am not actively using the iCloud sub for photos. About a year and a half ago I purchased it for convenience, because I needed to restore a backup to a replacement phone. As it turns out, iCloud failed at restoring all my photos anyway and I had to go back to my NAS and Dropbox and dump them all in to the Photos app on my Mac to get everything back on to my iPhone.

But that's why I do things the way I do them with Dropbox.

I never cancelled the sub, just because it's inexpensive and it's shared with my kids who take advantage of the additional storage however they like.

 

[gigapocket1]

I totally get where you’re coming from. My phone doesn’t download all my messages either, but I currently have 1 gig of free space. It deletes apps and stuff.

My cloud library would be a lot bigger, but I actually went through two years ago and saved my high-resolution videos to my NAS and converted all my videos to 720p for iCloud to save on storage. It delayed me a couple of months before I had to buy another 2TB.

Unfortunately, there’s no control over the storage. I always get 1TB, and this year is no different. On one of my laptops, that’s 512GB, and it’s always on low storage, even with optimize library on and now it won’t even download the latest photos when most of the OS is still taken up by the photo library.

It’s a real pain, and it ultimately comes down to cost. Even with the cost of local and iCloud storage, we may not be able to have our libraries with us at all times.

“Edited with Apple writing tools”

 

[Jdhommert]

View attachment 2416891
I totally get where you’re coming from. My phone doesn’t download all my messages either, but I currently have 1 gig of free space. It deletes apps and stuff.

My cloud library would be a lot bigger, but I actually went through two years ago and saved my high-resolution videos to my NAS and converted all my videos to 720p for iCloud to save on storage. It delayed me a couple of months before I had to buy another 2TB.

Unfortunately, there’s no control over the storage. I always get 1TB, and this year is no different. On one of my laptops, that’s 512GB, and it’s always on low storage, even with optimize library on and now it won’t even download the latest photos when most of the OS is still taken up by the photo library.

It’s a real pain, and it ultimately comes down to cost. Even with the cost of local and iCloud storage, we may not be able to have our libraries with us at all times.

“Edited with Apple writing tools”

So how much of the phone's storage is used, all but 1gb? Does it keep most of your phone full then?

My issue is it always downloads itself so full the phone runs horribly. Then when I toggle on Optimize iCloud library, it deletes every single picture instead of just a little bit. So I get absolutely zero use out of the extra storage I paid for.

 

[gigapocket1]

So how much of the phone's storage is used, all but 1gb? Does it keep most of your phone full then?

My issue is it always downloads itself so full the phone runs horribly. Then when I toggle on Optimize iCloud library, it deletes every single picture instead of just a little bit. So I get absolutely zero use out of the extra storage I paid for.

I’m going to turn on optimize storage for photos tonight and see what it does and report back in the morning. Maybe it’ll behave differently. I’m running iOS 18.1 beta.

 

[gigapocket1]

Nvm. It hasn’t changed.

 

[Jdhommert]

I think I've got it figure out, Apple seems to be managing this now..??? I didnt want to wipe and reset my phone so I realized I could just toggle download/keep and optimize again and see how much it downloads. It downloaded even more than it did last time, but I now get a message in the bottom of the photos app saying something like "not enough storage on device"

So it seems I'll be able to store the majority of photos/videos on my phone, instead of basically none.

I'm going to get a 1tb phone now lol

 

[macduke]

I personally have 1.1TB of photos and videos in my iCloud and I can view them all no problem on my 256GB iPhone 15 Pro Max. I’ve never bothered with managing anything. The setting to optimize the photos locally has been enabled on my device since it was added about 10 years ago. Not sure if I enabled it when it was first announced or if it was enabled by default. If I scroll back too far and tap on a video it sometimes has to briefly buffer before playing. Everything else is instant.

 

[Jamacfer]

I personally have 1.1TB of photos and videos in my iCloud and I can view them all no problem on my 256GB iPhone 15 Pro Max. I’ve never bothered with managing anything. The setting to optimize the photos locally has been enabled on my device since it was added about 10 years ago. Not sure if I enabled it when it was first announced or if it was enabled by default. If I scroll back too far and tap on a video it sometimes has to briefly buffer before playing. Everything else is instant.

Yes, same here (670 GB on iCloud and iPhone 256GB).

 

[caligurl]

Gosh and I thought I had a lot of photos! I'm not worthy! This is good information to have!

 

[applesith]

This is an interesting scenario I did not think about because I never ran into an issue. I just checked, and my Photos well exceed my iPhone's storage, but it seems to be managing it fine. I run into the slight lag of some photos/videos needing to be downloaded when I scroll further back, but it's not a problem for me.