> this could be seen as apple bloating figures No, the OP doesn’t take into account that adding media to Photos is not a simple “copy and store a file”. The Ph

> this could be seen as apple bloating figures No, the OP doesn’t take into account that adding media to Photos is not a simple “copy and store a file”. The Photos app (like all apps) has its custom Photos Library file format. So when one ads a picture or a video, the Photos app analyses it and stores all kinds of metadata that’s needed for the Photos app to work, including edit history and other bits. This is what eventually gets synced to iCloud.