Understanding how much storage photos are using on your phone is crucial in determining what capacity Picture Keeper you need. Knowing where to look for this information, however, can depend on the settings you have enabled, specifically for iCloud. Follow the steps below to check how much storage photos and videos are using on your iPhone or iPad:
- Open the Settings app
- Tap General:
- Tap iPhone Storage:
- Find Photos in the list, and take note of the number to the right (in this example, 6.97 GB):
- Tap < Back and then < Settings to return to the main Settings screen:
- Tap your name at the top:
- Tap iCloud:
- Tap Photos:
- Look for Manage Storage, and take note of the number to the right (in this example, 225.45 GB). On the same screen, also check the Sync this iPhone switch near the top (it reads Sync this iPad on an iPad), and note whether it is on (green) or off:
- Which of the two numbers you use depends on that switch. Do not add them together - both numbers can describe the same photos, and adding them would make your library look far bigger than it is:
- Switch on: your photos are one library shared between the device and iCloud, and the Manage Storage number is the size of that whole library. Use that number, and ignore the iPhone Storage one - it only covers the part being kept on the device right now. In this example, that is 225.45 GB.
- Switch off: your photos are stored only on the device, so use the Photos number from iPhone Storage instead. In this example, that would be 6.97 GB. Anything still listed under Manage Storage is an older copy kept in iCloud that is not on this device.
- If you're looking for the right capacity Picture Keeper, it's best to find the capacity that will accommodate that number, and then select the size above that capacity.
- Here, with a library of 225.45 GB, a 256 GB Picture Keeper would technically be able to store all of the photos and videos. However, this doesn't leave much room to continue backing up into the future, so we might instead consider a 512 GB Picture Keeper.
- For another example, if you have 55 GB of photos to backup, a 64 GB would be the minimum capacity required, so a 128 GB Picture Keeper would be best.
If you need any additional assistance, please contact Picture Keeper support.