Apple iPhone Photos eating up my storage (7 plus iOS 10.2 -beta upgrades)

[iMore Question]

I have 16,000 iPhone photos, uploaded to the iCloud. Optimize iPhone storeage is checked as "ON" on my iPhone in settings. Problem is these same photos used to take around 20GB on my 64 GB iPhone 6 plus. With my 128GB iPhone 7 plus, the photos keep expanding to fill all the "EXTRA" room on my iPhone. In 4 days the photos have expanded from 52.3GB to 58.3GB. Today I have only 21GB of free space on my 128GB iPhone.
The iPhone is expanding the size of the "current" thumbnails as it sees a lot of free space on the iPhone, and there is no way to turn it off or limit the expansion that I see.

 

[Ledsteplin]

That's a lot of photos to keep on a phone. Can't you upload most to your computer?

 

[robertk328]

I have 16,000 iPhone photos, uploaded to the iCloud. Optimize iPhone storeage is checked as "ON" on my iPhone in settings. Problem is these same photos used to take around 20GB on my 64 GB iPhone 6 plus. With my 128GB iPhone 7 plus, the photos keep expanding to fill all the "EXTRA" room on my iPhone. In 4 days the photos have expanded from 52.3GB to 58.3GB. Today I have only 21GB of free space on my 128GB iPhone.
The iPhone is expanding the size of the "current" thumbnails as it sees a lot of free space on the iPhone, and there is no way to turn it off or limit the expansion that I see.

Do you need more than 21gb free space? If not, I wouldn't worry about it. The system will take care of the storage as needed.

 

[Larry Cook1]

If my photos are backed up to Google Photos can i delete them from my phone?

 

[Rob Phillips]

If my photos are backed up to Google Photos can i delete them from my phone?

Yes.

 

[robertk328]

If my photos are backed up to Google Photos can i delete them from my phone?

Yes, but NOT if you're using iCloud Photo Library.

 

[Not Quite Right]

If my photos are backed up to Google Photos can i delete them from my phone?

Sure if you don't mind the lower resolution pictures that Google Photos is saving ...