35 GB of disk space gone ...

[Jochen K]

Hello,

I am using an iPad Pro (128 GB storage capacity) running iOS 9.3.2. The problem, now, is that only about 15 GB of that storage is available. This is odd for the following reason: adding up all apps (and their corresponding data) these apps occupy about 35 GB of disk space. There are, furthermore, about 2 GB of photos and 2 GB of music files (no videos etc.).
So, being generous (and taking into account all the data that I may have forgotten about) let’s say my personal data occupy about 50 GB. I further assume that of the 128 GB formally available about 30 GB are used by the operating system.
Consequently, there are about 35 GB which are – I know no better word – lost.

Could anyone provide me with some insight about where this tremendous amount of disk space may have gone? Better still, how I could reclaim that space?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Regards
Jochen

 

[Mlrollin91]

When you plug your iPad into iTunes, what does it show for storage wise. Is your "other" data a large amount? Average "other" should be about 2GB.

If you use Apple Music, it stores music cache offline in the background which can be many GBs depending on how much music you listen to. Same thing goes for streaming podcasts and movies. It becomes cache and can only be cleared by using iFunbox and navigating through the files of your iPad or waiting until iOS dumps the cache automatically. The latter typically won't occur until your storage is full.

The only other thing to do is create a backup. Restore. Restore from the backup. It will remove all unnecessary cache. But overtime it will rebuild.

 

[Jochen K]

When you plug your iPad into iTunes, what does it show for storage wise. Is your "other" data a large amount? Average "other" should be about 2GB.

If you use Apple Music, it stores music cache offline in the background which can be many GBs depending on how much music you listen to. Same thing goes for streaming podcasts and movies. It becomes cache and can only be cleared by using iFunbox and navigating through the files of your iPad or waiting until iOS dumps the cache automatically. The latter typically won't occur until your storage is full.

The only other thing to do is create a backup. Restore. Restore from the backup. It will remove all unnecessary cache. But overtime it will rebuild.

"other" is 41 GB! And iTunes lists 36 GB as free (iOS says 17 GB).
Do you know where those cache files are stored?

Anyway, thanks you very much for your input!

Jochen

 

[Mlrollin91]

If you have a Mac you can use iFunBox. But you have to be very careful of what you are deleting because it can mess things up. The easiest thing to do is backup, restore and restore from backup. That will make "other" normal sized again. But until you figure out what is causing the blowup of "other" the issue will return.

 

[Jochen K]

If you have a Mac you can use iFunBox. But you have to be very careful of what you are deleting because it can mess things up. The easiest thing to do is backup, restore and restore from backup. That will make "other" normal sized again. But until you figure out what is causing the blowup of "other" the issue will return.

Hi!

this ”backup / restore“ strategy you are proposing would be a valid option, if it didn’t solve the problem only temporarily.
Using iFunBox (which, as an aside, does – at least in my opinion – no better job than iMazing which I regurlarly use) I have searched for folders / files associated with caching, but none of the candidates are bigger than about 500 MB. And they dont add up to the 40 GB reported by iTunes.
Therefore, I think, the culprit has to reside in those portions of the file system which are no longer accessible in iOS 9.

I will have to live with those lost disk space, it seems. But, to be sure, there are worse things in life ...

Jochen

 

[Mlrollin91]

Hi!

this ”backup / restore“ strategy you are proposing would be a valid option, if it didn’t solve the problem only temporarily.
Using iFunBox (which, as an aside, does – at least in my opinion – no better job than iMazing which I regurlarly use) I have searched for folders / files associated with caching, but none of the candidates are bigger than about 500 MB. And they dont add up to the 40 GB reported by iTunes.
Therefore, I think, the culprit has to reside in those portions of the file system which are no longer accessible in iOS 9.

I will have to live with those lost disk space, it seems. But, to be sure, there are worse things in life ...

Jochen

Yeah it's definitely a pain. You can download battery doctor and try running the junk cleaner. But that typically only clears app caches and not system caches. Which will do you no good. Updating to the latest software when it becomes available will clear system caches but it will slowly build again. I typically get 1GB back after updating but my "other" is only 2GB. So you may get more back when 9.3.3 is released.

 

[M. Gustave]

Is this actually stopping you from using your device in some way? Are you getting storage full warnings?

Or is it just a bit of OCD?