iPhone Giant iCloud backup size on iOS 9?

[peter08po]

Since I upgraded to iOS 9 beta 2, the iCloud backup stopped working for a few days.

Then, I tried to backup manually and it prompts me that my iCloud account has insufficient space.

That was unusual because I always got 1 GB left (out of the 5 GB free storage) after doing an iCloud backup on iOS 8.

Later when I purchase an extra 20 GB, I found that the iOS 9 backup takes up 7 GB! (previously less than 2 GB for the same device on iOS 8).

There was no new apps installed nor there were any large files added in these days.

Wonder if anyone here have the same problem?

 

[Yun0]

ios 8 & ios 9 backups dont merge theyre separate for whatever reason

 

[peter08po]

ios 8 & ios 9 backups dont merge theyre separate for whatever reason

No, it is a separate backup instead

 

[Shirasaki]

No, it is a separate backup instead

This is a common bug known by many members in this forum.

My backup is broken but mine doesn't occupy such huge space. I suspect mine is still on iOS 8, not iOS 9, which is somewhat good for now.

 

[bushido]

when i delete my iCloud backup it still shows one of about 500 mb which sounds about right and is probably my iOS 8 backup but its "hidden" so i cant actually remove it. when i make a new backup on iOS 9 it shows about 1.2 GB so it is probably adding both numbers and displays it as one. most def. a bug

 

[Yun0]

No, it is a separate backup instead

? i just said that..

 

[wlossw]

If you downgrade to iOS 8.4 like I have, you can't delete the iOS 9 backup... and in my case it auto-enabled iCloud backup (which I never previously used)... so I have a 2.2gb iPad backup from the beta that I can't delete hogging all my iCloud space... I read a couple places that we should expect this to solve itself when iOS 9 is released for real in the fall.

 

[briankeith513]

I'm having the same issue on my 6 Plus, with the public beta. This is by far, the largest that my backup had ever been, and no matter what I did to remove iCloud-space taking items, it's not getting smaller. Anyone found a solution?

 

[Szymon Sikora]

I've had this issues since beta 2, and am talking with a Executive that reports to Eddy Cue on the issue, but basically it's the iOS 8.3/8.4 backups becoming separated and invisible to the user, but Apple can still see them. (When I called them, they saw the backups but weren't able to delete them, that's why I'm talking with the Executive Team) So hopefully the issue will somehow be resolved once Apple officially releases the GM version of iOS 9... or they'll just have to deal with thousands of unhappy customers

 

[The Doctor11]

I use to have a gig and a half of iCloud space free, since moving to the beta my phone and iPad backups are enormous. I think I'm gonna have to start paying for storage

 

[The Doctor11]

If you downgrade to iOS 8.4 like I have, you can't delete the iOS 9 backup... and in my case it auto-enabled iCloud backup (which I never previously used)... so I have a 2.2gb iPad backup from the beta that I can't delete hogging all my iCloud space... I read a couple places that we should expect this to solve itself when iOS 9 is released for real in the fall.

Have you tried backing up from 8.4? Back up 4 times and see what happen. iCloud only keeps 3 backups so 4 backups from 8.4 should wipe out your iOS 9 backups.

 

[Szymon Sikora]

Have you tried backing up from 8.4? Back up 4 times and see what happen. iCloud only keeps 3 backups so 4 backups from 8.4 should wipe out your iOS 9 backups.

I actually tried that on my end after being on the phone with Apple for about three hours and two call backs, and that didn't fix it. The Apple techs stopped seeing 8.4, but no storage change on my end!

 

[CoriG]

My last back up was 9.5 gigs running PB. I had to swap out a phone through AppleCare and now I can't back up my new phone to iCloud. Can I just delete the old phone'so back up and back this one up?

Thanks!

 

[Shawzborne]

iOS 9 iCloud backups don't work period it's been like this since the start and has not changed whatsoever. Just turn it off completely and manually backup via iTunes. Don't even waste your time I'll save you the 7 hours before it says backup failed

 

[mman454]

Manual iCloud backups on PB1 did not seem to work if there was already a backup for iOS9 on iCloud. I found that if you have issues deleting a backup from your phone, that you can still do so from the iCloud program on your computer.

 

[eXoenDo]

I am having the same issue. I spoke with a Senior AppleCare Advisor for iCloud who indicated that they saw multiple backups from my iPhone taking up space while I could only see one backup on my Mac/iPhone. They sent a request to Engineering to manually delete the other backups.

 

[Defender2010]

Does this mean all of us affected by this bug have to contact Apple? They should get it sorted by the GM. Here's hoping.

 

[eXoenDo]

Does this mean all of us affected by this bug have to contact Apple? They should get it sorted by the GM. Here's hoping.

Hopefully they will be able to identify these phantom backups. The person I spoke to said that they were missing important tags which is why I couldn't see them on my Mac or iOS devices. They probably could fix this issue by just running a sweep for any backups without tags. Of course this is just a theory since I don't know how it works on the backend.

 

[slayer1551]

Originally on beta 1 iCloud backup wouldn't work and I had chunks of space go missing which eventually sorted it self out after a few days.

However with the last beta it kept saying I didn't have enough space to complete the backup, usually it only takes up around 15 gb, so I bought 200gb of space to see what happened and left it over night. In the morning it showed that it had backed up but its taking 124 gb of space ?? My iPhone is only 64 gb so I have no idea why its 124 gb

 

[eXoenDo]

Today I got word back that they won't delete the backups for me since it's a "beta".

 

[Zmanbaseball2]

Anyone besides me still have phantom backs in the cloud in beta 5?

 

[hamiltonDSi]

i lost 3gb

 

[eXoenDo]

Seems impossible but I finally got the solution. First of all update to iOS 9 beta 5. Then, if you haven't already, go activate the backup in the iCloud Settings. Now, go to Setting>>Cloud>>Storage>>Manage Storage>> Device Name Backup. While the backup appears of 0 KB, we all know that isn't true. Going in the backup details finally in beta 5 it succeded loading the list of apps who are in the backup. I disabled all the apps (long and boring process) and then I succeded in deleting the backup (before I got the funny "This Backup Cannot be deleted at this time" message). Doing this seems to have deleted the backup and all the ghost space it stole in the previous betas.

This post on the Apple Dev Forums seems to be hit or miss for fixing the issue for some people. I myself still have giant backups that won't go away but some people are commenting that this worked for them.

 

[Armen]

Since I upgraded to iOS 9 beta 2, the iCloud backup stopped working for a few days.

Then, I tried to backup manually and it prompts me that my iCloud account has insufficient space.

That was unusual because I always got 1 GB left (out of the 5 GB free storage) after doing an iCloud backup on iOS 8.

Later when I purchase an extra 20 GB, I found that the iOS 9 backup takes up 7 GB! (previously less than 2 GB for the same device on iOS 8).

There was no new apps installed nor there were any large files added in these days.

Wonder if anyone here have the same problem?

Known issue. Been around since Beta 2 I think? It's misreporting the size.

 

[Zmanbaseball2]

This post on the Apple Dev Forums seems to be hit or miss for fixing the issue for some people. I myself still have giant backups that won't go away but some people are commenting that this worked for them.

Did not work for me.