iCloud Photos optimization not working (keeps too much stored locally)

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Level 1

4 points

iCloud Photos optimization not working (keeps too much stored locally)

I’m running into an issue with iCloud Photos. On both my iPhone 13 and my iPad Air, Optimize iPhone Storage is turned on. I have plenty of available iCloud storage, but the Photos app still takes up a large amount of local space (10+ GB).

Because of this, sometimes I can’t even install iOS updates since the devices run out of storage. It seems like iOS refuses to offload the originals, even though optimization is enabled.

Things I’ve already tried:

Verified that there is enough free iCloud storage
Toggled Optimize iPhone Storage off and on again
Restarted the devices
Emptied the “Recently Deleted” album

Still, the local storage usage remains very high.

Is there a way to force iOS to offload more photos/videos to iCloud and keep less stored locally? Or is this a known issue/bug?

Thanks in advance for any help or insights!

iPhone 13, iOS 26

Posted on Sep 30, 2025 11:36 PM

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Answer 1

Oct 4, 2025 7:44 AM in response to DVDH0

DVDH0 wrote: … My issue is specifically with iCloud Photos. on iPhone and iPad

Drat-- I lost track of which community I was in! You do, however, have the same option with iCloud Drive on mobile devices.

You're right, you don't have any control over which pictures do what with iCloud--the point is transparency, treating them all the same. The lesser used pictures get their originals removed, leaving screen sized versions available so that you can scan through the pictures without the internet. Pictures that are edited must have the originals downloaded to the device, and the original may remain there until space is needed for other things.

I do almost all image editing on my Mac, so the pictures on my iPhone take up very little space. My System Library is 145 GB on my Mac, but only 5 GB on my iPhone-- an amazing savings! That's probably the absolute best that you can get. I'm not sure that I see 10 GB as a lot of space for pictures, and Photos may not see that there's much more it can do. Just don't go into edit mode or zoom or print unless you need to.

In keeping smaller image files, Photos works differently than iCloud Drive, because screen sized versions look just as good on the screen as full sized ones. Photos doesn't remove the complete image. However, if you have big files in iCloud Drive, you can "Remove Download" and keep the entire file off the device. That might be a place to concentrate.

Apple recommends that you keep at least 10% of your storage free. If you've got less than that, then Photos (and other apps) may not work as efficiently.

What do you think?

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Answer 2

DVDH0 Author

Level 1

4 points

Oct 4, 2025 1:58 AM in response to Richard.Taylor

Thanks for the suggestion, Richard.

That “Remove Download” option seems to apply to files in iCloud Drive on macOS, right? My issue is specifically with iCloud Photos. The Photos app on iPhone and iPad keeps a large amount of photos and videos stored locally even though Optimize iPhone Storage is enabled.

There doesn’t seem to be a manual “Remove Download” option for photos on iOS, so I’m trying to find a way to force iCloud Photos to offload more content to iCloud.

Any idea if there’s an equivalent action or workaround for Photos on iPhone/iPad?

Thanks again for your help.

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Answer 3