Issue with iPhone Photos storage

[raziel101]

I only have 167 MB of Photos stored in photos, but when I go into settings > iPhone storage, it shows 5.29 GB of photos. I don't use photos in the cloud and I have already tried resetting and backing up/restoring my device. I have nothing in the recently deleted album either.

I've already called Apple and they escalated my issue to the engineering team, but that it''s been almost 30 days and they still don't have an update on my issue.

Anyone experience something similar?

 

[Samdh90]

Are you absolutely sure that the photos on your phone only consume 167MB? iCloud photos has an option to store the high res photos in the cloud, while retaining a lower-res, optimized version and then temp download the full version when opened? I know personally, this option does in fact save space and depending on your photo library size, can make quite a difference.

 

[raziel101]

Are you absolutely sure that the photos on your phone only consume 167MB? iCloud photos has an option to store the high res photos in the cloud, while retaining a lower-res, optimized version and then temp download the full version when opened? I know personally, this option does in fact save space and depending on your photo library size, can make quite a difference.

Yes, I only have 60 photos and six 10 second videos. I've never used iCloud photos, it's off and no photos are in the Cloud.

I've also Air Dropped all the photos to Mac, deleted them from the iPhone and Settings still shows over 5GB of storage.

 

[Samdh90]

Yes, I only have 60 photos and six 10 second videos. I've never used iCloud photos, it's off and no photos are in the Cloud.

I've also Air Dropped all the photos to Mac, deleted them from the iPhone and Settings still shows over 5GB of storage.

Okay, no worries, just checking. Are you running 15.4.1? I know that iOS 15.X had a long lasting storage bug that would simply show inaccurate data. I am wondering if this bug is still present. When you said that you restored the device, did you restore a backup, or set it as new? If you had not already tried this, I would try first making a reliable backup, then restore as a new device, then set it up as a new device without restoring the backup and see if you are still seeing it.

Have you taken a look to see how big the collection of photos and videos are on your mac? I would doubt it would be actually over 5GB but something may be up with one or more photo/video.

 

[raziel101]

Okay, no worries, just checking. Are you running 15.4.1? I know that iOS 15.X had a long lasting storage bug that would simply show inaccurate data. I am wondering if this bug is still present. When you said that you restored the device, did you restore a backup, or set it as new? If you had not already tried this, I would try first making a reliable backup, then restore as a new device, then set it up as a new device without restoring the backup and see if you are still seeing it.

Have you taken a look to see how big the collection of photos and videos are on your mac? I would doubt it would be actually over 5GB but something may be up with one or more photo/video.

Yes, I'm on the latest version of iOS. I Have not setup as a new device yet, but I suppose that is something I can try.

I do have a big collection of Photos on my Mac but I do not sync photos to my Mac and iCloud Photos on my Mac has never been used.

 

[Samdh90]

Yes, I'm on the latest version of iOS. I Have not setup as a new device yet, but I suppose that is something I can try.

I do have a big collection of Photos on my Mac but I do not sync photos to my Mac and iCloud Photos on my Mac has never been used.

Okay, fair enough, it could simply be a bug. Does Finder report the same 5+ GB usage on photos? I would think if it is a glitch, a restore as new would solve it. It is really annoying to do this but I usually do this once a year.

 

[raziel101]

Okay, fair enough, it could simply be a bug. Does Finder report the same 5+ GB usage on photos? I would think if it is a glitch, a restore as new would solve it. It is really annoying to do this but I usually do this once a year.

Finder shows 6.21 GB of photos on the device (didn't notice that until you asked).

 

[Samdh90]

Finder shows 6.21 GB of photos on the device (didn't notice that until you asked).

Okay, it is probably that storage bug then. Here is what I would do;

1. Create a backup(Local on mac preferred)
2. Go to settings and reset all settings(Not erase content)
3. See if the issue is still persistent
4. If it is still an issue, either ignore it or restore using finder as a "New phone" and not use the backup
5. If after all of that, you still see the issue, then restore your backup from step 1.

 

[usagora]

Since you put an exact number on the amount these photos are taking up (167 MB), I'm assuming that means you've imported them into Photos on your Mac or otherwise exported them to check on the file size outside the iPhone (since obviously the iPhone "disagrees" with you about the file size)?

Are these photos all ones you've taken with your phone or do you have any albums from Photos for macOS that are synced to your phone as well?

 

[raziel101]

Since you put an exact number on the amount these photos are taking up (167 MB), I'm assuming that means you've imported them into Photos on your Mac or otherwise exported them to check on the file size outside the iPhone (since obviously the iPhone "disagrees" with you about the file size)?

Are these photos all ones you've taken with your phone or do you have any albums from Photos for macOS that are synced to your phone as well?

Actually, the photos storage menu on the iPhone is stating the 167 MB. If I enable iCloud Photos, it will upload all the photos in the Photos app and free up 167 MB of storage

I have no photos synced to my iPhone from my Mac. I have a combination of photos taken by the phone, screenshots taken on the phone and photos air dropped from other devices.

 

[usagora]

Actually, the photos storage menu on the iPhone is stating the 167 MB. If I enable iCloud Photos, it will upload all the photos in the Photos app and free up 167 MB of storage

I see, so a deduction based on that statement. Mine says 3.45 GB for "Documents & Data" in Photos but only states I wlil save 1.18 GB by enabling iCloud Photos. However, I do have some albums synced to my iPhone from my Mac, so it may not be including those in its estimate.

 

[kevcube]

Documents and data might mean a photos database that for some dumb reason starts at 5gb. It’s probably storage that you’re unable to reclaim.

Until you can find someone with less space than that being taken up, I’d assume it’s something we’re all facing.

Also - the way iOS 15 pulls images from messages into photos, maybe they’re taking up space there. And finally, what about “recently deleted”? Or albums shared with you that may be cached?

 

[AlixSPQR]

I had a similar problem last autumn. I turned on iCloud and chose optimised storage, and then chose to switch it off again (photos sync drained my battery). I don't know what happened then, but Photos froze, and after a while there were no photos or videos left as per the app, but the allocated space were the same as before. I suppose there were a lot of ”orphaned” files left.

 

[Samdh90]

I had a similar problem last autumn. I turned on iCloud and chose optimised storage, and then chose to switch it off again (photos sync drained my battery). I don't know what happened then, but Photos froze, and after a while there were no photos or videos left as per the app, but the allocated space were the same as before. I suppose there were a lot of ”orphaned” files left.

Icloud photos does heavily rely on caching when optimized is enabled. Usually this extra usage goes into the "SYSTEM" section within the storage settings. With that said, if something glitched out, it would not surprise me.

 

[serialtoon]

I only have 167 MB of Photos stored in photos, but when I go into settings > iPhone storage, it shows 5.29 GB of photos. I don't use photos in the cloud and I have already tried resetting and backing up/restoring my device. I have nothing in the recently deleted album either.

I've already called Apple and they escalated my issue to the engineering team, but that it''s been almost 30 days and they still don't have an update on my issue.

Anyone experience something similar?

I just started experiencing a similar issue. This morning i woke up to a message that a backup could not be completed due to insufficient space in iCloud. I haven't changed anything however my backup was now a bloated 6.12GB of space where last night it was a mere 1.12GB at most. I didn't download anything or change anything. Im a little bit annoyed at how i have to keep checking what is taking up space by going back and forth on the settings menu only to find that nothing is showing containing a significant size to warrant the 5+GBs of storage

 

[raziel101]

So I backed up and restored my iPad as new, Photos storage was 0mb. I then decided to restore from the back up and initially the Photos storage was 0mb (backup was completed at this time) but as Messages in the Cloud started to download, I noticed the Photos storage started to increase. I think this is the issue.

Oddly enough, Messages in the Cloud is 17 GB but only 14 GB is on my Phone. In addition, message threads, photos and videos I deleted in 2021 are now showing up on my iPhone so it looks like when I delete messages, Apple is not purging the data on their servers.

 

[serialtoon]

So I backed up and restored my iPad as new, Photos storage was 0mb. I then decided to restore from the back up and initially the Photos storage was 0mb (backup was completed at this time) but as Messages in the Cloud started to download, I noticed the Photos storage started to increase. I think this is the issue.

Oddly enough, Messages in the Cloud is 17 GB but only 14 GB is on my Phone. In addition, message threads, photos and videos I deleted in 2021 are now showing up on my iPhone so it looks like when I delete messages, Apple is not purging the data on their servers.

I forgot to come back to this thread and update the issue and solution for my problem. I downloaded a large 5GB file via Safari while on LTE/5g and it looked like it never completed the download. However on my phone it created the stub for the file size of 5GB. So the next morning when my phone decided to backup to iCloud, it included the 5GB stub along with it. I forgot i even did this and of course Apples backup manager is absolute sparse in what its actually backing up. No where does it state that Safari pending downloads are uploading and eating your data. I assume its to keep the uninitiated from bothering with it and buying additional storage. Once i cleared it all was back to about 1.9GB backup. Took me a few hours and headaches to figure it out.

 

[ihakim]

I’ve had the same issue since October 2021 and have frankly given up. I have 11gb of photos but it shows up as 38gb on my iPhone and iPad and 11gb on my Mac. It essentially tripled in size when I upgraded to iOS 15. Nothing I have tried has fixed it including setting up the device as new. It will show the correct storage but a day or two later it shows up as the bloated amount. Very frustrating because if you do the math, it would mean an average of 17mb per iPhone picture! That’s equivalent to jpegs from my $4000 45MP mirrorless camera. The actual file size is 1-3mb per iPhone picture. This is a bug and it dosent seem to be a priority for apple to fix it.

 

[HDFan]

it would mean an average of 17mb per iPhone picture!

You can exceed 34 MB per iPhone picture depending on your camera settings.

 

[ihakim]

You can exceed 34 MB per iPhone picture depending on your camera settings.

I understand, but not every picture on my phone is a panorama. Photo storage doesn’t magically triple or quadruple overnight with an OS upgrade. I’ve literally checked the file sizes of photos and they average 1-3MB each in HEIC on my phone. This also doesn’t explain the discrepancy between my Mac and my iOS devices.

 

[HDFan]

I understand, but not every picture on my phone is a panorama.

The sizes I quoted are not panoramas. They are single shot DNGs from a 13 Pro Max. Have one that is 42 MB.

 

[ihakim]

The sizes I quoted are not panoramas. They are single shot DNGs from a 13 Pro Max. Have one that is 42 MB.

I have an iPhone 13 mini and I’m not shooting in RAW. As I mentioned, the actual file sizes are typically 1-3 MBs when I have looked at individual pictures so the math doesn’t add up.

 

[datapolitical]

Oh man, I thought I was alone, it’s the strangest issue. Does anybody know what photos go into this calculation? I didn’t think it included messages because those are under a different line. Now I’m thinking about deleting all of my photos, well, backing them up, and seeing how much space is used.

I have enough space that it’s not the end of the world, it’s just so weird.