What happens if iCloud Photo library becomes bigger than iPhone/iPad local storage?

[Propine]

Hi,

I am using iCloud Photo and wondering what will happen when the library becomes, e.g. 1 TB big and if I decide to use "optimised" versions of photos on my 64 GB iPhone/iPad, how it will be handled? I now have an about 60 GB library that takes about 12 GB in "optimised" size, so I assume it compresses up to 5-6 times. My assumption is that either all photos will be compressed even more until they fit or that I will be able to open them only on Internet connection. Although I have a fear that they will just simply fill my whole iPhone/iPad storage as much as possible and I won't be able to use the storage for anything else.

 

[0128672]

iCloud Photos > Optimize Photos will automatically manage the photo storage on your device. But if you have a photo library that exceeds the available space on your device, you will not be able to, say, download all of the originals from iCloud to your device if you don't have available device storage. You know that part already.

Per the Apple Support article below: "With Optimize 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."

Manage your photo and video storage - Apple Support

Learn about photo storage and saving space with iCloud.

support.apple.com

So yes, it can be done, but should you? Well, it depends. If you're storing a large photo library's worth of originals in Cloud Photos, you may want to have one or more methods for backing up that library to external devices. It's all personal preference and your comfort level with managing your original photos.

My approach is all my older photo libraries are backed up on multiple devices (external drives/DVDs). These days I don't shoot much, so my current photo library is small and well within the storage space on my devices and iCloud space. I would not be comfortable relying on iCloud alone for photo storage of originals.

There are lots of points of view about managing large photo libraries using iCloud, so I hope others will weigh in too.