iPhone photos missing after iCloud storage became full

ryne176 wrote:

So correct me if I'm wrong here, but when someone takes a picture on their iPhone, that picture is saved into the phone's internal flash storage by default, and if iCloud is enabled and synced, that photo is automatically backed up/copied onto it as well, right?

I thought it was as simple as that until I got the notification that my iCloud's storage was full and wouldn't be able to sync more photos (I've always had it enabled). A little while later, I log back into my phone to look at some pictures in the Photos app and see that more than half of them are missing. I checked the trash, and everything I was looking for was still missing. It wouldn't make sense to say that those pictures are missing just because they weren't synced with iCloud for some reason, because that would indicate that it wasn't actually backed up as a copy to iCloud from my internal drive; the file would've just gone straight to iCloud (not as a copy) instead of being saved on my internal drive.

The only reason I'm speculating this is because when I've tried to go back and few some photos in the past if my signal was bad and my wifi was down, the image would look like a low-res proxy to begin with before my phone took a second to download it to see in its original full resolution. But that of course got me thinking, "Wait, is this picture not actually stored in my phone's internal flash memory? Is the file only located in iCloud?"

Anyhow, immediately after I saw half my camera roll missing, I decided to just pay for iCloud+ to get the additional 50 GB storage. It didn't solve the problem, so whatever I'm not getting here is really throwing me off. All I really want is to get my photos back, but this whole iCloud conundrum shouldn't even be a conundrum to begin with. I always thought of it as an optional cloud storage system that you can use to backup all of your phone's data to, and although it technically still is, this is just adding a whole new layer to it.

What am I not getting here?

*iPhone SE 2nd Generation / iOS 16

You're syncing your photos to icloud, not backing up, read how it work here Set up and use iCloud Photos - Apple Support

Sounds like you may need to get more icloud storage or the message is about your internal storage being full read the difference What's the difference between iCloud storage and device storage on your iPhone or iPad? - Apple Support

ryne176 wrote: …So correct me if I'm wrong here, but when someone takes a picture on their iPhone, that picture is saved into the phone's internal flash storage by default, and if iCloud is enabled and synced, that photo is automatically backed up/copied onto it as well, right?

That would be true if your phone had an infinite amount of storage and you had an infinite amount of iCloud storage, either of which would require an infinite amount of money. (Also, the battery has to be charged, internet service has to be available, and so on.)

So no, if you don't pay for enough iCloud storage, your pictures won't be copied there. Buying more storage after they weren't stored there won't bring them back. It's the same with the iPhone. Furthermore, the phone and iCloud need enough room to manipulate the files, so if your available storage is less than 10% of the total, then your files may not get properly stored.

You should see razmee209's links.