iCloud Photos offers two options for syncing images and videos across your devices and into your iCloud account’s cloud storage: downloading and retaining originals or “optimizing storage,” which means only thumbnails are retrieved—full-resolution media is downloaded as needed, but otherwise not retained to free up storage on your device.
One reader switched to Download and Keep Originals on their iPhone, but didn’t have enough storage space. They believe about 2,000 images are missing. They are worried about switching back to optimized—will that permanently delete those images?
It’s likely they are not, but rather the phone stopped downloading because it lacked storage. iCloud Photos doesn’t delete images in that case; it just stops syncing them.
