iPhone XR 124.5 GB free on 128 GB iPhone, but with 44 GB of local media on phone. What?

[EugW]

I just did a couple of backups of my wife's iPhone XR. I first did a full backup to my iMac, but it was 118 GB, and thus eating up a huge chunk of my SSD. So instead, after downloading the photos I wanted into Photos, I deleted that 118 GB local backup and I did a backup to iCloud (which took quite a long time). Now it says that there is less than 4 GB used on the iPhone, despite having a fair bit of local storage used. See screen grab. How does this work? Same thing after a reboot. iOS 13.6. The Optimize iPhone Storage setting is on.

I repeated this iCloud backup procedure on my own iPhone 7 Plus, and it says I have 61 GB out of 128 GB used. Same Optimize iPhone Storage setting on and same OS.

 

[now i see it]

Threads like this come up frequently it seems: storage space reported doesn't agree with files residing on the phone.
I've come to the conclusion that it's an iOS reporting error.
In every instance, a person who finds a discrepancy like yours never gets the two to agree. Wiping the phone, resetting it, etc, doesn't seem to work.
The reported ghost files might be hidden inaccesible long lost cache files or logs or whatever or there might not be anything there at all.

I say - ignore it.

 

[EugW]

Threads like this come up frequently it seems: storage space reported doesn't agree with files residing on the phone.
I've come to the conclusion that it's an iOS reporting error.
In every instance, a person who finds a discrepancy like yours never gets the two to agree. Wiping the phone, resetting it, etc, doesn't seem to work.
The reported ghost files might be hidden inaccesible long lost cache files or logs or whatever or there might not be anything there at all.

I say - ignore it.

So, a reporting error that stays in error. It's disconcerting but if it doesn't affect anything I guess that's OK.

However, note in this situation the files are actually there, and iOS is reporting that they aren't using any storage.