Space Saver: originals in your backup, thumbnails on the phone

When it is worth turning on

A vault full of videos takes the same room on your phone as the camera roll it came from. If storage is tight, you have two choices: keep fewer things, or keep the big files somewhere else and fetch them when you need them. Space Saver is the second choice.

Space Saver, part of Sealed Pro, keeps originals in your encrypted iCloud backup and frees space on your iPhone.

Before you start

You need two things in place:

1. A working backup. Only items that have finished uploading to your iCloud backup can be offloaded. The backup page explains how to turn it on.
2. Sealed Pro. Taking files off the phone is the Pro part; everything else about backup is free. Encrypted iCloud backup is free.

How to offload

1. Open Settings in Sealed and find Space Saver. Space Saver is in Settings, under Sync & Backup, and shows how much space you could reclaim and how much is already offloaded.
2. Tap Offload All Backed-Up Media to clear every item that has a confirmed copy.
3. Or skip the screen and long-press one large video in the vault grid, then choose Offload from Device.

You offload with Offload All Backed-Up Media in Space Saver, or one item at a time with Offload from Device in its long-press menu, and Download All to This iPhone brings everything back.

The check it makes first

Space Saver never trusts an old note that a file was backed up. Space Saver keeps a thumbnail on the iPhone, takes a file off it only after its iCloud copy is confirmed, and downloads the file when you open it.

If an item’s iCloud copy can’t be confirmed at that moment, Sealed keeps it on the iPhone and says so.

The files stay sealed the whole way. Files, names, notes and record fields are encrypted on your iPhone before they are uploaded, so iCloud receives only ciphertext.

What changes on your phone

You still see every item in the grid. Tapping one downloads its full file, so a slow connection means a short wait.

Before a flight or a trip

An offloaded file has to download before it opens. If you will be somewhere with no connection, bring things home first: Download All to This iPhone is on the same screen. You offload with Offload All Backed-Up Media in Space Saver, or one item at a time with Offload from Device in its long-press menu, and Download All to This iPhone brings everything back.

A couple of other tools work only on files that are on the phone. Items kept only in iCloud by Space Saver are skipped by Find Duplicates until you download them. Items that Space Saver keeps only in your iCloud backup are listed in the open copy, but the copy can’t include them.

Storage, in plain numbers

Space Saver does not compress anything: it moves where the full file lives. The copy it relies on is the one your backup already made. Backup uses your iCloud storage, and when it is full Sealed says so and stops adding new items. Apple says the data an app keeps in a user’s CloudKit private database is accessible only to that user by default, isn’t visible in the developer portal, and counts toward the user’s iCloud storage.

If your cloud storage is the thing that is full, the storage guide lists ways to make room.

If your plan ends

Only taking files off your iPhone is part of Sealed Pro: bringing files back from iCloud never is, even if your plan ends. If your Sealed Pro plan ends, backup keeps running. You can bring every file back to the phone at any time.

Where Sealed helps, and where it doesn’t

It helps you keep a large vault on a small phone, and it never removes a file whose backup copy it can’t confirm. If an item’s iCloud copy can’t be confirmed at that moment, Sealed keeps it on the iPhone and says so.

It doesn’t do these things:

• Free space used by your camera roll. It only touches items in the vault. Another guide covers deleting photos from the phone while keeping them in the cloud.
• Work without a backup. Only items that have finished uploading to your iCloud backup can be offloaded.
• Open offloaded files with no connection. They download when you open them. Space Saver keeps a thumbnail on the iPhone, takes a file off it only after its iCloud copy is confirmed, and downloads the file when you open it.
• Give offloaded files a second home. Until you download them again, their full copy lives in your backup. Items that Space Saver keeps only in your iCloud backup are listed in the open copy, but the copy can’t include them.