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‘Optimised’ Photo Library Size Discrepancy

A

AppleManAdi

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 26, 2021
10
9
Hi All!

I’m enjoying my new iphone 13 Pro Max (256Gb), which has been a great upgrade from my previous XS Max. Got a bit of a weird issue with the space the optimised photos library is taking up…

I did a direct copy from the XS Max to the 13 Pro Max, and all went great, with the only modification I made being deleting a few space-hogging apps afterwards on the new phone to free up a bit of the chunky red block :). As we know this type of copy (or a restore from backup) doesn’t copy photos anyway, which sync down from iCloud.
The optimised library in the XS Max takes up about 13Gb….

D38EF78E-6211-479B-B0B9-3E6FDD8A0016.jpeg


whereas exactly the same library on the 13 Pro Max takes up almost 100Gb….

57B65315-B0E6-4516-ADDC-375A120AE8D0.jpeg

With the resolution of the screen etc being the same, I’d have expected the same volume of ‘optimised’ data (approximately), rather than the new phone having a library almost 8 times the size….! Settings are the same on both (the full size of the library in iCloud is 380Gb so it’s definitely optimising both).

It means I now only have 70ish Gb left of the local storage, when it should probably be more like double that, or more…

this was even before I did anything, so I hadn’t watched lots of videos and pulled them down locally for example….

Any ideas?
 
AppleManAdi said:
Hi All!

I’m enjoying my new iphone 13 Pro Max (256Gb), which has been a great upgrade from my previous XS Max. Got a bit of a weird issue with the space the optimised photos library is taking up…

I did a direct copy from the XS Max to the 13 Pro Max, and all went great, with the only modification I made being deleting a few space-hogging apps afterwards on the new phone to free up a bit of the chunky red block :). As we know this type of copy (or a restore from backup) doesn’t copy photos anyway, which sync down from iCloud.
The optimised library in the XS Max takes up about 13Gb….

View attachment 1848864

whereas exactly the same library on the 13 Pro Max takes up almost 100Gb….

View attachment 1848865
With the resolution of the screen etc being the same, I’d have expected the same volume of ‘optimised’ data (approximately), rather than the new phone having a library almost 8 times the size….! Settings are the same on both (the full size of the library in iCloud is 380Gb so it’s definitely optimising both).

It means I now only have 70ish Gb left of the local storage, when it should probably be more like double that, or more…

this was even before I did anything, so I hadn’t watched lots of videos and pulled them down locally for example….

Any ideas?
Click to expand...
I’m having the same exact issue. Called apple and they said to install the latest update which didn’t help anything. Guess I’ll call back later see what else I can do.
 
Hojobones said:
I’m having the same exact issue. Called apple and they said to install the latest update which didn’t help anything. Guess I’ll call back later see what else I can do.
Click to expand...
Let me know if you get anywhere. I updated to latest as soon as I did the initial copy, and before the library got far into syncing…

Wonder if removing and re-syncing the library would help…
 
I'd let things settle before removing and re-syncing, but that's me. Sometimes I have to view space used a few times before it settles down on the right size especially on optimized photo devices. I'd give a phone a restart and see if that helps any. Usually just letting this go is the best thing to do (unless it's been like this for a few days - then yeah, remove, re-sync).
 
Yup. It’s been like this since Friday. Will give it a few more days at the moment. The situation isn’t desperate, just a bit annoying 🙂.
 
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same here!

went from about 100 gb free on iphone 12 pro to around 52 gb free after i transferred to iphone 13 pro

My 12 still shows it has more photos and files than on my 13 so im baffled...
 
…it’s still going up…

there’s definitely something weird going out here. Just checked again. Have taken a few pics since yesterday but not much else…

CA73DD07-0F3C-4E62-819C-DB5BFFE9FD44.jpeg

Almost 3Gb more… 🤔
 
Yeah that doesn't look right at all. Unless iOS 15 changed how the optimized photos works? My iPad Pro 11 with iPad OS 15 is normal (9GB out of 98GB). :/ More than just a few people reporting this too. :(
 
Similar issue here.

Around 15gb on the XSMax running iOS 15 yet 40gb on the new 13ProMax

Phone is still scanning some faces but all other indexing seems to be compete.
86A8BAFB-0B68-42AD-A929-3D935370BCC2.jpeg
 
Maybe it's being a lot more aggressive on using available space? People maybe got upset that it wasn't downloading enough? <Just a guess>.
 
Yea, I’m having the same issue.

Old XR is 55.7GB of storage used, 2.85GB

new iPhone 13 Pro is 102.6GB used, 66.8GB of which is photos.

I have been taking more videos than before but there is absolutely no way I could have reasonably taken 64GB of content.
 
penrua said:
Yea, I’m having the same issue.

Old XR is 55.7GB of storage used, 2.85GB

new iPhone 13 Pro is 102.6GB used, 66.8GB of which is photos.

I have been taking more videos than before but there is absolutely no way I could have reasonably taken 64GB of content.
Click to expand...
So I’m getting a support call back tomorrow morning.
 
Guys, just don’t use iCloud services. Many of the subsidiaries like iCloud Photos backup are just horrible products, and the software accompanying the Photos component - or the Photos application broadly, even for offline management - are sloppy efforts by Apple.
 
penrua said:
So I’m getting a support call back tomorrow morning.
Click to expand...
Support had me share screens and check various settings (phone storage, iCloud storage, Manage storage settings etc...) and they acknowledged it is abnormal behaviour.

They're going to research and come back to me, hopefully, with a solution.
 
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Had this problem with my new 13 Pro (128GB) so I reset as a new phone rather than from backup and it’s now got 80GB free rather than using 80GB like it was before doing this. It’s using more storage than my previous XS (256GB) did which was about 22GB.
 
BigPotatoLobbyist said:
Guys, just don’t use iCloud services. Many of the subsidiaries like iCloud Photos backup are just horrible products, and the software accompanying the Photos component - or the Photos application broadly, even for offline management - are sloppy efforts by Apple.
Click to expand...
Got to disagree. Generally it works absolutely fine for me. Had virtually zero issues with it for years. I've also had a good call with Apple support about this, and am going to update in a separate reply below...
 
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Okay! So yesterday afternoon I had a really good call with the second level Apple support about this. He went into it in depth, and consulted the technical info that they have in regards to iOS 15.

First an update as to my own situation. The library on the 13 Pro Max is still large (100Gb) but now the library size on the XS Max has also grown to 46Gb. The overall space available has changed very little however. Basically, before the yellow photos block 'grew' the 'System Data' block was larger. All of a sudden (actually whilst I was on the phone to support), the photos block are to 46Gb and the system data block basically disappeared (more or less), suggesting that the system block was actually holding the photos library data that was being reoptimized at that time.

After consultation with documentation by the support guy, it seems that iOS 15 makes use of large amounts of free space to re-optimize the photos library to improve the local experience by having bigger local images. Rather than simply keeping the smallest optimised images/videos locally, it does some sort of usage analysis/assumptions and downloads larger, or even original size, images and videos. This is how MacOS currently works, but with MacOS, it's shown as a separate 'purgeable' amount of data in the storage report. This purgable data will get automatically deleted as space becomes filled up. In a nutshell, it seems that iOS now does the same, but simply doesn't report it like MacOS. Also, iOS 15 is the first to proactively make use of the space to increase a photo library size like this. Previous iOS versions only downloaded the bigger images when they were accessed, so if you didn't constantly look through all your photos and view them at zoomed size, then the library size wouldn't change much.

This happens transparently. Also, as space starts to fill up with less 'purgable' stuff, the purgable data gets removed to free space for it.

The upshot is that in certain cases our devices may show more full than we expect. The take-away is that effectively it's another case where Apple are taking over the management of the free space on our devices to provide a better experience, but at the cos of that warm fuzzy feeling that comes with having a nice wedge of empty space on the device.

This is one of those things that polarises people. I must admit, I don't really care how it's done as long as it works, and as long as there's an explanation for the lack of empty space.

He's going back to the higher-level engineering resources (those that sit behind the wizard's curtain I'm guessing :p ), and will come back to me in about four days with a final opinion.

Myself? Like I said, I'm kind of not bothered as long as it works. There have been many occasions where getting the best experience has meant giving up granular control over certain things, but storage is something that makes more people jittery than most other things I know... Sometimes, as long as it works, you have to ask yourself whether you actually need that granular control. In my opinion, it's one less thing to think about. This is why I choose iOS over Android - I'm simply not that bothered about having the granular control in most cases - as long as it works. IN this case, time will tell...
 
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AppleManAdi said:
Okay! So yesterday afternoon I had a really good call with the second level Apple support about this. He went into it in depth, and consulted the technical info that they have in regards to iOS 15.

First an update as to my own situation. The library on the 13 Pro Max is still large (100Gb) but now the library size on the XS Max has also grown to 46Gb. The overall space available has changed very little however. Basically, before the yellow photos block 'grew' the 'System Data' block was larger. All of a sudden (actually whilst I was on the phone to support), the photos block are to 46Gb and the system data block basically disappeared (more or less), suggesting that the system block was actually holding the photos library data that was being reoptimized at that time.

After consultation with documentation by the support guy, it seems that iOS 15 makes use of large amounts of free space to re-optimize the photos library to improve the local experience by having bigger local images. Rather than simply keeping the smallest optimised images/videos locally, it does some sort of usage analysis/assumptions and downloads larger, or even original size, images and videos. This is how MacOS currently works, but with MacOS, it's shown as a separate 'purgeable' amount of data in the storage report. This purgable data will get automatically deleted as space becomes filled up. In a nutshell, it seems that iOS now does the same, but simply doesn't report it like MacOS. Also, iOS 15 is the first to proactively make use of the space to increase a photo library size like this. Previous iOS versions only downloaded the bigger images when they were accessed, so if you didn't constantly look through all your photos and view them at zoomed size, then the library size wouldn't change much.

This happens transparently. Also, as space starts to fill up with less 'purgable' stuff, the purgable data gets removed to free space for it.

The upshot is that in certain cases our devices may show more full than we expect. The take-away is that effectively it's another case where Apple are taking over the management of the free space on our devices to provide a better experience, but at the cos of that warm fuzzy feeling that comes with having a nice wedge of empty space on the device.

This is one of those things that polarises people. I must admit, I don't really care how it's done as long as it works, and as long as there's an explanation for the lack of empty space.

He's going back to the higher-level engineering resources (those that sit behind the wizard's curtain I'm guessing :p ), and will come back to me in about four days with a final opinion.

Myself? Like I said, I'm kind of not bothered as long as it works. There have been many occasions where getting the best experience has meant giving up granular control over certain things, but storage is something that makes more people jittery than most other things I know... Sometimes, as long as it works, you have to ask yourself whether you actually need that granular control. In my opinion, it's one less thing to think about. This is why I choose iOS over Android - I'm simply not that bothered about having the granular control in most cases - as long as it works. IN this case, time will tell...
Click to expand...
So TL;DR is that, as someone suggested in maybe this or the other thread, iOS 15 has just rejigged the way Optimise photos works, and now it will download more. When push comes to shove and the phone fills up, it may look to hold less on the device?
 
penrua said:
So TL;DR is that, as someone suggested in maybe this or the other thread, iOS 15 has just rejigged the way Optimise photos works, and now it will download more. When push comes to shove and the phone fills up, it may look to hold less on the device?
Click to expand...
In a nutshell...

I think rather than 'may look to hold less' it's more 'will remove some to make space' though...
 
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AppleManAdi said:
…it’s still going up…

there’s definitely something weird going out here. Just checked again. Have taken a few pics since yesterday but not much else…

View attachment 1849960
Almost 3Gb
penrua said:
If that's the case, I'm not too worried so long as it works when storage does get tight!
Click to expand...
the question is what if it doesn’t work. Debating on returning this phone, can’t go a year with only a few gb of free storage. Very frustrated to say the least.
Click to expand...
 
I still found on iOS 14 that the system was not optimizing right. My iPhone 12 had 28GB of photos on it and I would get the storage is full message and would have to go delete apps. I kinda wish it just worked like Google Photos with a small on device footprint
 
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