Mac – Other Mac storage taking up 90GB! Help!

First question: yes, iCloud backs up your photo as it is. If you delete media from your photos library it will be deleted from iCloud. (I might add that videos are also stored in the cloud - and consequently take up the most room).

Second question: It is possible you can use the Scanner and Camera wizard to import photos from your iPhone. Here is are two articles that briefly describe the process.

• Tech Recipes
• OSX Daily

Before you delete all (or most of) your photos off your iPhone, I would recommend that you double check that everything has been transfered correctly so you don't lose any pictures.

You probably already know this but it's worth mentioning anyways. When you go to delete photos from your iPhone, open the Photos app, click the Camera Roll album, then select the box with the arrow icon at the top right of the screen. Select pictures to be deleted, then tap the Delete button in the bottom bar (this is also a way to email more then one picture).

Of course, the other option would be to turn off the iCloud backup of your photos. (You already know how to get there but go to iCloud > Storage & Backup > Manage Storage > [your name] iPhone > Turn Camera Off.)

Short answer:

Restore to Factory Defaults

Long answer:

I had essentially this situation 3 weeks ago, although my capacity was "consumed" by Other.

• iPhone 5S 32GB
• iOS 9.3.2 (later updated to 9.3.3)
• synced with iTunes 12.4.1.6
• on Mac mini OS X 10.11.5

The iPhone Settings > General > About > Available showed 0.25GB.

When syncing with iTunes, it showed unstable capacity numbers on each sync -- occasionally over-capacity with Other consuming 4.6GB, but settled down to 5.5GB available. The 5GB discrepancy was concerning.

I tried:

• rebooting => nothing
• hard reset (Lock + Home, past Apple logo, to plug-in-to-iTunes image) & update (re-install iOS) => freed 60MB
• iOS update to 9.3.3 => nothing

The final option was what prior searching had said all along -- Restore to Factory Defaults.

I just followed Apple's procedure and it freed 9.5GB! (Not sure where it came from, but I'm glad to have it back... and disappointed that it was missing in the first place...)

• Make sure your backup is current and you know the password, if encrypted.
• Disable Find My iPhone.
• Restore to factory (10-15min).
• Went through the basic setup tweaks (it defaults to 6 digit passcode, now).
• Restore backup (I enabled encrypted backups long ago and it took 4 tries to get the right password... oops!) (15min).
• Authorize (iCloud?) from another device (my iPad).
• Restore iCloud (It asked for iCloud security code or another authorized device. I used the security code, which generated an iCloud Keychain verification code that was sent to the iPhone, which was in the middle of setting it up, so it showed momentarily and moved on. Fortunately, it was mirrored to the Mac mini. Then I never had to enter it... perhaps a race condition with the previous step?)
• Strangely, a few apps appeared to be installed, but a big sync with iTunes put everything where I expected it to be.
• Finally, iTunes said 10.1GB free & iPhone said 9.9GB free. Not too bad. So, yay?

Good luck.