Why do I have photos stored on my iPhone while 100% are synched on iCloud?

[MacGiver]

Anyone would know why I have 7GB of photos on my brand new iPhone 14PM while 100% are store on iCloud. In short when I take a photo I expect it to be on the u loud therefore not using my iPhone storage.

 

[splifingate]

iCloud is a syncronisation service, and--as such--it basically mirrors what you have on your phone with what is stored in iCloud (and vice versa).

Apple gives users a choice to mirror your entire Photos Library with Originals, or Optimize your local storage with smaller versions.

I mirror all my iCloud content (roughly 500GB) to my desktop Macs, and optimize the content mirrored on my iPhone.

In iCloud I have about 200GB of photos/videos stored, yet these consume roughly 100GB of storage on my iPhone.

Manage your photo and video storage - Apple Support

Learn about photo storage and saving space with iCloud.

support.apple.com

btw, you *can* store content in iCloud that does not automatically get mirrored to your devices by manually uploading to folders outside of Documents, Desktop and Photos into iCloud Drive

 

[MacGiver]

Thanks. As additional infos I do not have a Mac. I am not syncing with any laptop or computer. Just my iPhone and iPad.
When setting up my 14PM I did a manual configuration installing with the old/new iPhones side by side. I have photos set up to “optimize iPhone storage”. I still do not understand where this 7GB come from while I am having 200+GB worth of photos on iCloud. So you’re saying it is a normal behavior?

 

[MacGiver]

So basically my 200GB on iCloud are the original version of my 7GB on the phone that are a very optimized version of the 200GB? Is that what it means? When I open a photo I see it in its original version but when it is not opened it is kind of idle and in an optimized low GB version?

 

[madeirabhoy]

So basically my 200GB on iCloud are the original version of my 7GB on the phone that are a very optimized version of the 200GB? Is that what it means? When I open a photo I see it in its original version but when it is not opened it is kind of idle and in an optimized low GB version?

sort of. the only difference is that the optimised version might even be less than 7gb although that sounds about right*. the phone only optimises when it needs space. if you open loads of photos and videos on your phone that 7gb will go up, as it downloads full versions, but only whilst you have tons of space. if you needed the space it would go back down as the phone would delete the full versions again.

*basing that on my own phone has 3.17gb of photos and icloud has 38.7gb but then again its a new phone with lots of space. i am sure that would go down to under 2gb if needed.

 

[MacGiver]

sort of. the only difference is that the optimised version might even be less than 7gb although that sounds about right*. the phone only optimises when it needs space. if you open loads of photos and videos on your phone that 7gb will go up, as it downloads full versions, but only whilst you have tons of space. if you needed the space it would go back down as the phone would delete the full versions again.

*basing that on my own phone has 3.17gb of photos and icloud has 38.7gb but then again its a new phone with lots of space. i am sure that would go down to under 2gb if needed.

👍 wonder about system data. I am discussion on a tiger thread about that. Lots of people complain about the very large space system data take. Some of them are having their phone full of system data after restoring. I have about 15GB out of 67GB storage on my 256GB disk.