I wish iCloud Photos would use more of my available space!

[zorinlynx]

I have 196GB free on my 256GB 11 Pro max, but Photos only keeps about 3-4GB of my library on the phone at a time when "Optimize Storage" is enabled for Photos.

Is there any way to get it to use more space? I want more of my recent photos and videos to stay on the phone, and not be purged unless storage actually runs low. My library is too big to outright turn off "Optimize storage" or I would.

Has anyone here gotten Photos to hold onto more than about 4GB of the library?

 

[Vlad Soare]

I think there's no way of knowing exactly how much space the Photos library is actually occupying. What iOS reports as "free" storage space isn't actually free, but it's freeable if necessary.
This is obvious when you turn on the optimized storage feature. As soon as you turn it on, the "free" space increases instantly and dramatically. It's obviously extremely unlikely that iOS can replace 90% of your library with lower resolution placeholders in a split second. It's much more likely that it knows how much space it could free up if the need arose, and reports that as being "free".

 

[keeper]

They should all be on the iPhone, do you have en iCloud storage for them all?
The Apple web has a wealth of informative-information.

Manage your photo and video storage – Apple Support (UK)

Find out about photo storage and saving space with iCloud.

support.apple.com

With Optimise Storage, smaller, space-saving photos and videos are kept on your device while all of your original, full-resolution versions are stored in iCloud. And as long as you have enough space in iCloud, you can store as many photos and videos as you want.