Default backup order in Azalea follows library time, not “largest first.” When iPhone storage is full of photos and 4K clips, that default is the slow way to move the Settings number. One 4K file is worth dozens of HEICs. Lab 4K clips averaged 56–90 MB; HEIC stills about 3 MB. The 14 Mar 2026 iPhone 15 USB job wrote 18,432 items and 86.41 GB in 257 minutes, about 5.7 MB/s, because thousands of small stills paid PhotoKit export on every file. Clearing video first is the emergency order.

On that phone, 541 clips were about 30.6 GB and stills 55.8 GB. Deleting fifty 4K files you have already opened on the disk moves “Available” more than deleting two thousand HEICs you have not verified. Live Photo motion clips count as video-side bytes. Grid count will lie to you.

Azalea writes originals to your USB folder, S3 bucket, or Samba share. Nothing original is hosted by Azalea. Bundle net.duguying.photos. If the disk is not attached, USB work pauses. If the bucket region is wrong, the first list fails before any 4K PUT.

Steps when space is the emergency

Open Settings → iPhone Storage and write down Photos and Available. Lab machine: 241.3 GB used, Photos 88.1 GB, 256 GB iPhone 15, iOS 18.6.1, 200 GB iCloud plan already full. Do not start with Select and Delete in Photos.
Install Azalea. Allow Full Access. Open Cloud Album → Backup Storage. Prefer USB if Wi-Fi PUT would take all night; the March run used a SanDisk Extreme 1 TB, folder azalea/15-lab. For S3, English tests used us-west-2. Tap Test Connection before you trust the profile.
Open the Videos smart album (on Android it hides when empty). From Diagnostics, confirm video rows are in the queue. Automatic backup still walks by time; you are using Videos to know which files, once copied, are safe to delete locally.
Keep USB in the foreground. Power on. When a batch of clips shows Pending 0 for those items, open two of them from the disk: one recent 4K, one older. Check duration and file size, not the grid thumbnail.
Delete only those verified clips on the phone. Recently Deleted holds them for 30 days; empty it only if you need the blocks today and you accept that undo is gone.
Let stills continue. Tiny HEICs will drag USB 2.0 and cheap OTG averages down. That is expected. Do not yank the cable to “hurry” stills; the Mate 60 OTG yank at 61% (22 Feb 2026) left twelve temp files to rewrite.

Huawei Mate 60, HarmonyOS 4.2.0, SanDisk Ultra Dual Drive Luxe 1 TB: 8,359 items, 36.64 GB, 188 minutes, 3.32 MB/s. Video bursts hit 18 MB/s; tiny JPEGs pulled the average down. Emergency kit: a short cable that actually enumerates as storage, video first, stills later. The first OTG plug was charging-only until USB mode was file transfer.

Pixel 8 Android 15, 2 Apr 2026: video averaged 89.2 MB, some 4K60. Stills averaged 4.08 MB. The overnight S3 run (81.95 GB, 664 minutes including idle) is the wrong tool when the phone already cannot install an app because storage is gone. Free a few gigabytes by deleting verified 4K, then finish stills.

One failure: deleting 4K that iCloud had already placeholder-swapped

If Optimize iPhone Storage was already on, the “video” in Photos may be a placeholder. PhotoKit export then waits on iCloud. Diagnostics can show iCloud original download stalled for over N seconds. Deleting that row because Settings still says you are full removes the pointer, not a local original you never had. Check iCloud Photos and quota first. The March lab kept Optimize off until USB finished, then turned it on; Photos fell to 41.6 GB a week later while the disk stayed 86.41 GB.

USB 2.0 and a poor C-to-C cable make stills worse, not video. Do not format APFS and expect Android to finish the same disk later. exFAT, escaped names, .album/manifest.jsonl as the ledger. Twenty-three colon names on the iPhone 15 run were escaped; the logical keys stayed stable.

If Available is already so low that Azalea will not install, delete a podcast app or offload a title from Apple TV, not the camera roll. Then run Videos first. Cellular PUT of 4K is expensive and slow; USB does not touch the radio. S3 us-west-2 is fine once the phone can stay on Wi-Fi overnight, which a full device often cannot.

FAQ

Does Azalea back up largest files first?

No. Order follows the library. When the phone is full, you use the Videos album and diagnostics to finish and delete large clips first, then let the rest of the queue run. That is an operational order, not a hidden sort flag.

Why was USB only 5.7 MB/s on a 10 Gbps SSD?

PhotoKit export per still, thousands of ~3 MB HEICs, and iOS access rules. The disk was not the bottleneck. Video bursts are higher; averages fall when stills dominate. The Huawei OTG average was 3.3 MB/s for the same reason.

Can I free space by turning on Optimize instead of deleting 4K?

Only if iCloud Photos can hold the originals. A full 200 GB plan will not. USB or S3 first, then Optimize, is the order in original vs Optimize. Deleting verified 4K is the faster Settings change when quota is already exhausted.

What if I unplug during a video-first run?

USB pauses. Replug, Check again on iOS, grant the tree again on Android if the URI died, tap Resume Backup. The Mate 60 yank at 61% recovered; twelve temps were discarded. Do not delete phone copies until Pending for those clips is 0.

Where is the rest of the “storage full” path?

iPhone storage full — keep the photos is the do-not-bulk-delete version. Free space after backup is Optimize after you have opened files. Download: /en/download. USB picker: /en/features/usb.

When 4K video fills the phone, back that up first