My iPhone is FULL - help transferring 190GB to iCloud!

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missljayeg Author

Level 1

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My iPhone is FULL - help transferring 190GB to iCloud!

My iphone 13 has 255.36GB of 256GB storage used.

190GB of that is photos and videos.

I have iCloud which I've previously used to put the photos and other media from my MAC. That took up 6GB.

This morning I upgraded iCloud to 200GB so I could upload the photos from my iPhone to my iCloud.

I clicked sync and it looks like it is trying to download the 6B worth of media from my iCloud account to my phone, which I obviously don't have the space for. Nor so I want another 3000 photos on my phone when I'm trying to get rid of them.

I've tried to speak to support but they were of no help.

Is it possible to;

Download the 11,416 photos & 2,390 videos (190GB worth) from my phone to my iCloud account without putting whatever is already on my iCloud account, on my phone.

I'm getting pretty desperate. I'd appreciate a Yes that's possible, this is how you do it, or No, that's not possible if you sync your phone to icloud the other media from other devices goes onto your phone too.

THANKS!

iPhone 13, iOS 17

Posted on Jun 27, 2025 09:19 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

zinacef

Level 10

88,714 points

Jun 28, 2025 09:13 AM in response to missljayeg

Yes, it is possible to upload the 190GB of photos and videos from your iPhone to iCloud without downloading the existing 6GB of older media already in your iCloud account. The key is to enable iCloud Photos on your iPhone and make sure "Optimize iPhone Storage" is turned on. This setting ensures your full-resolution files are uploaded to iCloud, while only lightweight thumbnails remain on your phone, saving space. Although it may initially appear that your iPhone is trying to download everything from iCloud, it’s usually just syncing metadata or previews, not full files.

If you’re concerned that iCloud Photos might behave unpredictably, another option is to transfer your media manually. You can connect your iPhone to a Mac or PC, import the photos and videos using Image Capture (Mac) or the Photos app (Windows), and then upload them to iCloud via the iCloud Photos folder on your computer. This gives you full control and avoids downloading anything extra onto your iPhone. Either way, you can safely get your media into iCloud without overloading your device.

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Answer 2

missljayeg Author

Level 1

0 points

Jun 29, 2025 04:55 PM in response to zinacef

Thanks! I'll give that a go :)

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