Trying to Understand iCloud Photo Storage

[btfc]

A method that I sometimes employ I call ‘ The Oil Change Training Method ‘.

The first time, I’ll basically change your oil while you watch.

The second time, I’ll watch and advise while you do the oil change.

After that, change your own damn oil!

[mikebw]

vision63 wrote:
For the time being, check out the pros and cons of "Optimise Photos" in the iPhone settings. I've been meaning to fully check out how Apple implements this feature.

Settings

General

iPhone Storage

Enable "Optimise Photos"

It should reduce quite a bit.

The photos are still stored on iCloud and the phone photos are replaced with smaller versions. When you want to do something with the photos it "should" retrieve original seamlessly.

If you don't do the Optimise feature, anything he deletes from his iPhone also gets deleted in iCloud.

Thank you for this. I have been confused for years as to why deleting from the phone would also delete from the cloud. It seemed so useless before but now it makes sense!

[rich in distress]

graylocks wrote:
… what I see on my phone are reduced versions? I would have thought it would have a little cloud icon on it if that's the case. does 'upon request' mean that when i want to post a photo to Facebook or Instagram it's not pulling it from the reduced rez version on my phone but the full rez version in iCloud?

The little cloud icon happens on files.app or with offloaded applications. Syncing photos resembles using the address book.
I don’t know what size is used for social media. Maybe reimport one of your photos and get info to check.
Worth mentioning:
Settings/AppleID/iCloud/Manage Storage will let you see how much space your Photo Library uses in the cloud.
Settings/General/iPhone Storage will show the size of your Photo Library in the phone.