Freeing up space taken by optimized photo library

[s8film40]

Hi, I'm having a hard time searching for a solution to this as everything I pull up simply refers to optimizing the photo library or the iCloud account in general. I have a very large photo library, I have it selected to optimize storage. However whenever I free up space on my phone it seems like the photo library will take advantage of this and grow. I freed up about 40gb on my phone a few days ago and my photo library grew by about 20gb's. Does any one know how I can keep the photo library from I assume downloading photos to my phone and simply keep them optimized?

 

[now i see it]

You can compress most of the photos you don't need hi res versions of with a photo compression app. It can make a typical 3MB file only take 1/2 the size and still look fine, or a lot more if you don't mind a little degradation.

Here's one app:

Photo Compress - Reduce image size, shrink pictures & entire albums to save memory space by Martin Brachmann
https://appsto.re/us/Y86L5.i

 

[s8film40]

The problem for me isn't the size of the photos but how much space iCloud chooses to take up for my photo library. I have over 60,000 photos and my photo library is over 300GB. Even if I cut that in half it could still easily fill the remaining space.

Additionally I tried turning off iCloud photo, this freed up the space initially, but when I turned it back on within about a day it slowly grew to about 20GB short of my capacity.

 

[M. Gustave]

From other people's tests posted here, Optimize should reduce your library on your iPhone to roughly 2.5% of its original size. In your case, 7.5 GB. But that's assuming you're not viewing them routinely at full size, editing, or sharing them; all of which forces the full size version to download.

Where are you seeing the storage use? On your phone, or in desktop iTunes?

 

[s8film40]

From other people's tests posted here, Optimize should reduce your library on your iPhone to roughly 2.5% of its original size. In your case, 7.5 GB. But that's assuming you're not viewing them routinely at full size, editing, or sharing them; all of which forces the full size version to download.

Where are you seeing the storage use? On your phone, or in desktop iTunes?

I'm looking at the size of the photo library on my phone. After turning it off and then back on again it was around 12 GB. I then let it go for a couple of days and did not access the photos or share any or anything and it grew to about 40 GB.

 

[Phil A.]

If the space isn't needed by anything else you'll probably find iOS will decide to use it for your photos as unused space is wasted space

 

[Older bird]

I use amazon photos or google photos. Amazon for daily use and google for long term backup. Amazon works perfectly. The app is quick and easy. I backed up to both initially and a hard drive then erased all the photos in iCloud. Saved me 30 gigabytes. I can actually get by with a 32gb phone now. Eyeballing a 32gb matte black right now, what a bargain

 

[s8film40]

If the space isn't needed by anything else you'll probably find iOS will decide to use it for your photos as unused space is wasted space

Yeah, this is my problem I need to keep the space free to be able to use it. I use my phone as a second camera for some video projects and need to be able to use about 50gb of space.

For now I've just disabled iCloud Photos, which is a shame I like the functionality. I'm planning to get an iPhone 7 so I guess I'll just wait till then to re-enable it.