How do I know if photos are saved locally on iPhone so I can delete them on iCloud to open up space?

[MasturB]

I have the 200gb plan. I'm about to surpass it so I don't wanna go up from the 2.99 per month to 9.99. Most of that 200gb is photos and videos from my road trips. I went to iCloud and deleted the oldest dated stuff, then saw on my phone it was also gone. How do I check if those photos are saved locally on my phone, so I can open up space on my iCloud account since it's about to touch 200gb?

I still have only used about 68.5 GB out of 256gb on my iPhone, and I imagine when I get a newer iPhone and this iPhone 8 Plus is replaced, that I still won't be anywhere close to using that 256gb, but the newer phone will probably have a higher capacity anyways.

 

[MacManTexas56]

I have the 200gb plan. I'm about to surpass it so I don't wanna go up from the 2.99 per month to 9.99. Most of that 200gb is photos and videos from my road trips. I went to iCloud and deleted the oldest dated stuff, then saw on my phone it was also gone. How do I check if those photos are saved locally on my phone, so I can open up space on my iCloud account since it's about to touch 200gb?

I still have only used about 68.5 GB out of 256gb on my iPhone, and I imagine when I get a newer iPhone and this iPhone 8 Plus is replaced, that I still won't be anywhere close to using that 256gb, but the newer phone will probably have a higher capacity anyways.

i don't think there's a real good way to tell. icloud and photos are integrated into the same app. so can't really select certain ones to remove from icloud.

 

[GermanSuplex]

Just use a separate app, like the Files app, to save any photos locally. If you have them saved in a different app, you can safely delete them from iCloud.

Or, if you aren't afraid of Google, download the Google Photos app. You can get free unlimited storage if you allow your photos/videos to be slightly downgraded. I'm not sure to what degree Google is actually downgrading the photos/videos, because my 4K videos are still in 4K and all my photos look great and maintain their metadata when I re-download them.

Regardless, everything is backed up in the background. You can open the app anytime and there is an option to free up your local/iCloud storage space. It works great. If you use iCloud photos, its a way to keep everything backed up while keeping your iCloud storage and local storage free.

*I just read that if you use Apple's HEIF/HEVC format to save your photos and videos on iPhone (I believe its the default), then your files won't be downgraded when uploading to Google Photos, essentially giving you free unlimited storage. This is because this compression is so good, using the compression Google uses would actually increase the filesizes. If you use the "most compatible" formats, then your 4K videos will be downgraded to 1080p.

No wonder my videos/photos look just as good on Google Photos as they do when they're first taken!