Only 40gb space occupied by photos on older iPhone but after syncing to new iPhone, the entire storage is full

[sd13]

I had about 40gb of space being occupied by photos and videos in my iPhone 11 Pro Max. I upgraded to the iPhone 13 pro max, selected to transfer all data from nearby iPhone but now all my photos that were sitting on iCloud and not occupying any space on my previous iPhone are now actually in the internal storage of the new iPhone. Is there any way to go back to my photos only using 40gb of space instead of my entire storage?

 

[Quackers]

There seem to have been many reports on the reported storage figures quoted on the 13's being wrong.
Some report that the phone is full when it's not.
I'd hang on for a while and see if it gets fixed.

 

[jokerz126]

I found the same experience with a 256gb 13 pro max. Photos is using 120gb. On a 128gb 13 pro max the same photo library is using 10gb!! What is going on here?? Should I do a re-install on the 256gb ??

 

[now i see it]

iOS 15 sometimes doesn’t display correct storage size

 

[sd13]

I figured out what the problem stemmed from. I had originally transferred from an iPhone that wasn’t updated to iOS 15. I factory reset the new phone, updated the old phone and tried again. The correct storage occupancy is showing now.

 

[J.C]

I figured out what the problem stemmed from. I had originally transferred from an iPhone that wasn’t updated to iOS 15. I factory reset the new phone, updated the old phone and tried again. The correct storage occupancy is showing now.

You may find it just starts reporting incorrectly again on its own, unfortunately. There's storage bugs that Apple hasn't fixed yet.

 

[jokerz126]

thankfully seems much better after backing up to icloud, erasing all, then restoring from icloud backup...