Photo Storage in iCloud

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Level 1

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Photo Storage in iCloud

I want to consolidate all my photo storage into iCloud. The idea of having all photos available on all devices is alluring but 20 plus years of digital photos (300 GB) will greatly exceed the storage on my iPad and iPhone. I’ve toggled on “Optimize iPhone Storage” within Photo settings but it’s unclear what impact this has for on-device storage.

So, my question is: If upload all my photos onto iCloud will it consume all of my storage on the handheld devices upon syncing? And, are there any other unintended consequences to be aware of ? Thanks….

iPhone 4s, 9

Posted on Mar 2, 2023 11:29 AM

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Answer 1

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SixFour391

Level 4

1,520 points

Mar 2, 2023 11:44 AM in response to Apple-allin

When you selected "Optimize iPhone Storage", this means that the files actually stored on your iPhone are low-res and smaller MB versions of the files. When you view them, however, they are basically being "streamed" to you, like a song would be, if you didn't download it to your device. So it's a GOOD thing that you decided to do this to save space on your phone.

Syncing your Photos with iCloud does not take up space on your iPhone, but does accumulate space in iCloud (a virtual external hard drive).

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Answer 2

Apple-allin Author

Level 1

4 points

Mar 2, 2023 11:58 AM in response to SixFour391

Thanks. You don’t happen to know the size of the low res files? If a normal photo is 4 mb, what would the low-res file be?

Looking for a rule of thumb. It would be helpful to know if 300 GBs reduces down to 30 GBs for example. What’s the ratio?

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Answer 3

SixFour391

Level 4

1,520 points

Mar 2, 2023 12:01 PM in response to Apple-allin

It's impossible to tell, because each photo's resolution is different.

You can check each photo by "swiping up" on the photo or tapping the "i" icon on the bottom of the screen, when viewing a photo, and you should get all the photo's information

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Photo Storage in iCloud

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