Content Overview:
Please Help! Photos Taking Up Space on iPhone Even with iCloud
Photos taking up too much GB even after I upload my photos to iCloud
So I was just looking at my Iphone Storage, and I found out that the Photos is taking up so much GB, which doesn’t make sense to me at all because I have uploaded everything to my Icloud. Please take a look at the picture i will attach down bellow and help me with a solution please. thank you.
- Question from discussions.apple.com
iCloud plays an important role in the Apple ecosystem, which stores crucial files from your iPhone, iPad, and Mac. However, you might find the same situation just like the above user, Photos taking up space on iPhone even with iCloud. If you are suffering from this, you’re going to get answers and solutions for that. Then you can free up space from your iPhone easily, let’s find out now.
Why Are Photos Taking Up Space on iPhone with iCloud?
Your photos might still be taking up storage on your iPhone even with iCloud enabled due to a few common reasons:
✔️ Your iCloud storage gets full or almost full. If iCloud storage full, then any new photos will not sync, which means those photos will remain on the device, taking up its local storage.
✔️ The photos and videos is uploading to iCloud and not finished yet. So they’re taking up local space.
✔️ Photos and videos in Shared Albums or those synced via iTunes don’t get stored in iCloud, which means they remain on your device.
✔️ iPhone can store other cached media files, like thumbnails and other cached data for faster access to your photos.
5 Fixes for Photos Taking Up Space on iPhone Even with iCloud
Here are some proven ways for you to fix "photos on iPhone not freeing up space with iCloud", just try them one by one.
Way 1. Try Optimize iPhone Storage
If you have configured "Download and Keep Originals" in your iCloud Photos settings, all the uploaded iCloud photos and videos will be stored on your iPhone with full-resolution. So, switch to "Optimize iPhone Storage" to save space, which allows smaller versions of these media files on your device, while full-resolution versions are stored in iCloud. Check differences between Download and Keep Originals and Optimize iPhone Storage if required.
Way 2. Check Available Space on iCloud
If the iCloud storage is full, then any new photos and videos can’t be synced to iCloud. You have to make sure there is enough cloud storage space on iCloud. Delete some files from iCloud to free up space, or upgrade iCloud to get more space, then enable Optimize iPhone Storage to free up space on iPhone.
Way 3. Wait for Syncing to Complete
Sometimes, newly created photos and videos is currently uploading to iCloud, photos still taking up space on iPhone. Please connect your iPhone to a strong Wi-Fi network and plug it into a power source to transfer photos from iPhone to iCloud completely. After the sync process completed, then check your iPhone storage. Learn how to see which photos are taking up the most space on iPhone, delete files according to your needs.
Way 4. Delete Shared Albums and Albums Synced from iTunes
Sometimes, if you have photos and videos in Shared Albums or those synced via iTunes, review these albums and delete unnecessary items to free up space on iPhone.
Way 5. Delete Other Cached Media Files on iPhone
Except for the photos in iCloud, your iPhone might store thumbnails and other cached data for faster access to your photos. To delete these cached files, restarting your phone or clearing out some system storage through settings can free up this space.
By managing these settings, you can reduce the amount of space photos take up on your iPhone while still keeping everything safely stored in iCloud. Besides, If you want to know how to delete photos from my iPhone but keep them in iCloud, click the link to get solutions.
Protection Tip: Migrate iCloud Photos to Other Clouds to Free Up Space
How to move photos from iPhone to iCloud storage and delete from iPhone? In fact, you can’t do that easily, no matter what way you choose, Download and Keep Originals or Optimize iPhone storage, all iCloud photos are stored to your iPhone and the only difference is the resolution.
So, if you want to keep these photos and videos online and access anytime, it’s highly recommended to migrate all iCloud Photos to other clouds directly with MultCloud, like Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, Box, Amazon S3, etc. Once the photos migrated from iCloud to another cloud, all the iCloud photos will be removed from your iPhone, which is truly free up space on iPhone.
To migrate iCloud Photos to Google Drive, Google Photos or other clouds, MultCloud as the all-in-one multiple cloud storage manager - MultCloud, comes to help you a lot. Check the following strengths:
- 40+ Clouds Supported. MultCloud supports almost all clouds in the market, including Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Photos, Google Workspace, OneDrive for business, Dropbox Business, Box, Box for Business, iCloud Drive, iCloud Photos, NAS, WebDAV, FTP/SFTP, and many more.
- Flexible Migration Features. You have multiple ways to move photos from iCloud to other clouds, like cloud to cloud transfer, sync, backup, share, copy to, copy, etc.
- Lighting-Speed transfer. You can enjoy up to 10 threads instead of 2 to move faster if required.
- Strong Security. MultCloud uses 256-bit AES encryption and an OAuth authorization system to safeguard your files.
Here we will demonstrate the simple steps to move iCloud Photos to Google Photos, check it now:
1. Log in to your MultCloud Dashboard after registering.
2. Tap Add Cloud, choose iCloud Photos, then follow the guide to add. Then add Google Photos in the same way.
3. Click Cloud Transfer, then choose iCloud Photos as the source, and then Google Photos as the target.
4. Hit Options > Delete all source files after transfer is complete, then press the Transfer Now button to migrate iCloud Photos to Google Photos immediately.
Tips:
- You can also set up the filter and email settings except for the transfer methods in Options. You can migrate certain files with Filter using file extensions, and get email notification about the task with Email.
- To automatically migrate photos from iCloud to Google Photos, hit Schedule > Daily, Weekly, Monthly or the specific time to perform the tasks.
- Unlock all premium features after upgrading, then you can enjoy Schedule, Filter, up to 10 threads instead of 2, more data traffic, and many more.
Once the process is complete, all the transferred photos and videos are saved on your Google Photos and automatically deleted from iCloud Photos, as well as on your iPhone. Now your iPhone storage will be freed up easily, which can save more photos and videos. That's the way how to stop photos from taking up space on iPhone with iCloud.

- Smart Share: Share cloud files via public, private, or source mode.
- One-key Move: Quick data transfer, sync, and backup among clouds.
- Email Archive: Protect emails to other clouds or local disks.
- Remote upload: Effectively save web files to clouds via URL.
- Save Webpages as PDF/PNG: Keep them locally or online.
- Safe: Full-time 256-bit AES and OAuth authorization protections.
- Easy: Access and manage all clouds in one place with one login.
- Extensive: 30+ clouds and on-premise services are supported.
The End
Photos taking up space on iPhone even with iCloud is quite annoying. You can find the reasons photos still take up space on iPhone even with iCloud, or after being deleted, and quick solutions. If you want to completely free up space on iPhone, it’s worth migrating iCloud Photos to another cloud you’re using, which keeps the archive and frees up space on iPhone. That is to say, killing two birds with one stone.
MultCloud Supports Clouds
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Google Drive
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Google Workspace
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OneDrive
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OneDrive for Business
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SharePoint
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Dropbox
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Dropbox Business
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MEGA
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Google Photos
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iCloud Photos
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FTP
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box
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box for Business
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pCloud
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Baidu
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Flickr
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HiDrive
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Yandex
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NAS
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WebDAV
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MediaFire
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iCloud Drive
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WEB.DE
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Evernote
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Amazon S3
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Wasabi
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ownCloud
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MySQL
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Egnyte
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Putio
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ADrive
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SugarSync
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Backblaze
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CloudMe
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MyDrive
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Cubby