Manage your photo and video storage - Apple Support (2024)

FAQs

Manage your photo and video storage - Apple Support? ›

While 'Optimize iPhone Storage' offers significant benefits, it's not without drawbacks. One key downside is the reliance on an internet connection to access full-resolution images stored in iCloud, which can be inconvenient in areas with poor connectivity.

While 'Optimize iPhone Storage' offers significant benefits, it's not without drawbacks. One key downside is the reliance on an internet connection to access full-resolution images stored in iCloud, which can be inconvenient in areas with poor connectivity.

Turn off iCloud Photo Sharing

If you turn it off, you can delete photos from your iPhone, and they will still be available on iCloud.com or other devices that have iCloud Photo Sharing turned on. Here's how to do it: Open Settings. Then tap your Apple ID.

What Happens If You Optimize iPhone Storage? Contrary to "Download and Keep Originals", the "Optimize iPhone Storage" keeps smaller, space-saving photos and videos on your device while all of your original, full-resolution versions are stored in iCloud.

When Optimize Storage is turned on, full-resolution photos and videos are stored in iCloud, and, when needed, space-saving copies are stored on your device. And as long as you have enough space in iCloud, you can store as many photos and videos as you want.

Data like documents and photos remain on iCloud after you stop paying, but syncing stops if you're over the free storage limit. This means you can't add more data without managing your storage.

The key takeaway: iCloud stores your data, but it doesn't remove it from your device by default. Downloaded movies, music you haven't streamed in ages, and those "just-in-case" apps can silently gobble up space.

But sometimes, you may notice that your iCloud is still full even though you delete some data. It is probably because iCloud still holds backups of your old iOS devices. To delete those files, you can tap “Backups” when you enter iCloud storage on Settings. Choose a device name.

Before you turn off iCloud Photos, be sure to make a copy of your photos and videos. Photos and videos stored in iCloud will be deleted 30 days after you stop using the service.

Does iCloud save all your deleted photos? ›

When you delete a photo or video from Photos on iCloud.com, it's also deleted from all your devices that have iCloud Photos turned on. If you change your mind, you have 30 days to recover it before it's permanently deleted.

You can make more space in iCloud when you delete photos and videos that you no longer need from the Photos app on any of your devices. Before you delete anything, make sure that you back up the photos and videos that you still want.

No matter how many images you need to keep safe in the cloud, Dropbox can help you store them all. Storage options — Start with 2 GB of free storage.

With the amount of text messages and photo/video attachments that most iPhone users send and receive on a daily basis, it's very common to have a need to free up space on one's iPhone by deleting some of the text messages on the device.

If your device is low on storage or has storage full, it automatically frees up space while installing an app, updating iOS or iPadOS, downloading music, recording videos, and more, To make more storage available, your device may also remove items that can be downloaded again or aren't needed anymore.

If you use iCloud Photos, you can turn on Optimize Mac Storage to conserve storage space on your Mac. This option stores smaller versions of your photos on your Mac when storage space is limited, and keeps the original, full-size photos in iCloud.

How to Increase the Resolution of an Image on iPhone. Go to Settings > Camera > Formats to change your resolution from 12 MP to 24 MP. To change it to 48 MP, go to Settings > Camera > Formats, then turn on RAW or Resolution Control.

Resolution For Editing Apps

You'll notice from the results that all of the images maintained the original, full resolution of the iPhone 5s camera (3264 x 2448 pixels). This means that the editing apps didn't reduce the number of pixels in the edited photo when saving.

HEIC offers better compression and retains more detail, making it a great choice for preserving image quality while saving storage space. Most Compatible saves images in the widely compatible JPEG format, which might be suitable for sharing without much editing.