iPhone 11 Pro Max iPhone out of Storage with plenty of family shared storage?

[LarryJoe33]

I am stumped here. I share my 2TB's with my kids. Two of them are out of iphone storage and even though they are off loading some things to iCloud, it is obviously not optimal. I have never had this issue on my main device and owner of the storage. There is plenty of iCoud storage available. I have done and checked all the usual things.

Any help or tips appreciated.

 

[ApfelKuchen]

Without knowing your definition of "usual things" it's hard to know what you've really checked.

First thing to check is Settings > General > iPhone Storage. That will show you what apps are the top users of storage space on the device, and also will often suggest changes you can make to reduce storage usage. Check the setting for each app that's a major user of storage - some apps, including Messages, Music, TV, and Podcasts give you options to review/delete individual downloads.

Here's a list of features that will help automatically manage on-device storage use (based on iOS/iPadOS 14):

iCloud Photos > Optimize Storage

iCloud Messages - if iCloud Messages is enabled (Settings > [name] > iCloud) then it automatically uses a feature similar to iCloud Photos' Optimize Storage - it will reduce on-device storage once the messages have been synced to iCloud

Music app - Also has an Optimize Storage feature - Settings > Music > Optimize Storage - helps manage downloaded music (media downloaded from Apple - iTunes, Podcasts, TV, etc. - is never copied to iCloud storage - if deleted from the device it's re-downloaded from Apple)

It's worthwhile to compare the amount of storage space being used in iCloud for iCloud Photos and iCloud Messages to the on-device storage for those functions. If the amounts on-device are equal to or greater than the storage being used in iCloud, then there's a problem somewhere - those features may not be syncing correctly with iCloud.

When iCloud Photos > Optimize Storage and iCloud Messages are syncing as they should, you should see results comparable to mine (64 GB iPhone X, 54 GB of 64 GB Used):

iCloud Photos storage: 100 GB
Photos on-device storage: 3.5 GB
iCloud Messages storage: 7 GB
Messages on-device storage: 1.2 GB

 

[LarryJoe33]

Without knowing your definition of "usual things" it's hard to know what you've really checked.

First thing to check is Settings > General > iPhone Storage. That will show you what apps are the top users of storage space on the device, and also will often suggest changes you can make to reduce storage usage. Check the setting for each app that's a major user of storage - some apps, including Messages, Music, TV, and Podcasts give you options to review/delete individual downloads.

Here's a list of features that will help automatically manage on-device storage use (based on iOS/iPadOS 14):

iCloud Photos > Optimize Storage

iCloud Messages - if iCloud Messages is enabled (Settings > [name] > iCloud) then it automatically uses a feature similar to iCloud Photos' Optimize Storage - it will reduce on-device storage once the messages have been synced to iCloud

Music app - Also has an Optimize Storage feature - Settings > Music > Optimize Storage - helps manage downloaded music (media downloaded from Apple - iTunes, Podcasts, TV, etc. - is never copied to iCloud storage - if deleted from the device it's re-downloaded from Apple)

It's worthwhile to compare the amount of storage space being used in iCloud for iCloud Photos and iCloud Messages to the on-device storage for those functions. If the amounts on-device are equal to or greater than the storage being used in iCloud, then there's a problem somewhere - those features may not be syncing correctly with iCloud.

When iCloud Photos > Optimize Storage and iCloud Messages are syncing as they should, you should see results comparable to mine (64 GB iPhone X, 54 GB of 64 GB Used):

iCloud Photos storage: 100 GB
Photos on-device storage: 3.5 GB
iCloud Messages storage: 7 GB
Messages on-device storage: 1.2 GB

Thank you for the comprehensive response. I checked all these and should have elaborated more on this and also noted my skill level. I know my way around iOS and how to check and free up storage. I certainly can remove messages, video, photos and check all the optimize and iCloud boxes.

Where I am perplexed is why do I need to do this if I have everything set to offload and leverage my storage through family sharing. I’ve been buying smaller and smaller capacity phones for myself every year now because iCloud works for my phone and use iCloud like it’s part of the phone when it comes to the usual large file size culprits. That said, I’m not an 18 year old girl taking videos every five seconds and texting them to groups who text the same back.

Maybe iCloud doesn’t do what I thought it did.

 

[rui no onna]

What’s the biggest user of storage on their devices? If it’s games and app data (including Netflix, etc. downloads), then iCloud’s not really going to help.

 

[Shirasaki]

iCloud isn’t really going to offload a ton of stuff here tbh. Just like rui says, most of the time app data wont be offloaded by iCloud. Game data, local cache, third party chatting app data, they aren’t going to be stored in iCloud anyway, and those might be what kids use the most.
Imo, 128GB is really the bare minimum for local storage, and the bigger the better.