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iOS 17 post install - system data took my storage
- Thread starter mannyvel
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Out of curiosity, how much local music do you have on your phone?
Storage says I have 66.67GB of music on my phone. 66.24 of Synced Content. The category under Synced Content is Photos at 58GB and then Gmail at 625MB.
I did just now speak with the rep whose attitude has totally changed from being helpful and trying to find out what happened, to well, I emailed engineering and they initially said it was a new feature and it's basically out of my hands. She wanted to get off the phone as fast as possible. But she say she will let me know if engineering says anything new. I am not going to hold my breadth.
If Synced Content consists of music, podcasts, books, and other stuff (she told me photos are not included in this total) then why are there separate amounts for music, apps, books, etc. and also Synced Content? I don't get it.
I guess the test would be to see how much storage I would end up with if I synced up my phone again and unchecked music. If synced content were not counted against storage, then I should only gain the 66.67 of space. If I gained more like 133GB of space we know synced content is being counted as storage.
I did just now speak with the rep whose attitude has totally changed from being helpful and trying to find out what happened, to well, I emailed engineering and they initially said it was a new feature and it's basically out of my hands. She wanted to get off the phone as fast as possible. But she say she will let me know if engineering says anything new. I am not going to hold my breadth.
If Synced Content consists of music, podcasts, books, and other stuff (she told me photos are not included in this total) then why are there separate amounts for music, apps, books, etc. and also Synced Content? I don't get it.
I guess the test would be to see how much storage I would end up with if I synced up my phone again and unchecked music. If synced content were not counted against storage, then I should only gain the 66.67 of space. If I gained more like 133GB of space we know synced content is being counted as storage.
This is what I suspected too.
It appears to be doubling up that storage. I plan on doing that test like you by un-syncing and then possibly re-syncing that data.
Although Im not looking foward to it. Every time I do something like that it always messes something up.
I will post any updates.
Hopefully Apple or us as a collective can find a solution. I'm not happy to lose 20GB of storage and Im sure your are not happy with losing 66GB.
I looked at this storage and notice that some of my apps are like 5-6gb 🤨, not sure what is going on, after deleting them then reinstalling back to normal for now. Also have IOS 17.0.1 at over 10GB and system data 7.7gb 🙄, nearly 20Gb on device that have storage of 64gb is huge chunk, this reminds me of android days, sync content is 0. Please tell me this is not normal. I will check my wife iPhone as hers is still on IOS16.
Another thread on the sync storage -
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/synced-content-now-appears-uses-sizable-storage.2398796/
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/synced-content-now-appears-uses-sizable-storage.2398796/
I wonder what would happen if i delete the Apple Music App. Anyone know? As most of my music is from ripped music on my laptop, would that music be deleted from the phone?
I seem to have found a solution. I've updated to 17.0.2 and still had no luck with non-stop increasing system storage of 130GB+, increasing per day. I tried to perform an iCloud backup and while it was estimating its backup time, the system storage began to clear out and now I am left with only 6gbs in system storage. Note that you do not actually have to perform a backup nor restore from it. You just have to run the backup estimation and then cancel the backup afterwards and it should clear your system storage hog. Seems to be an iCloud issue at this point.
Do you have music? I have loaded MP3's on mine (not Apple music) and the sync storage is roughly equivalent to the size of the music I have.
System Storage is not the issue here (it may be another issue). It's a category called Synced Content. You can see it at the bottom of the screen shot I posted above. I have 66GB of music I have ripped over the years and my laptop and synced it to my phone. All of a sudden with iOS 17, this new category called Synced Content show a bit less than 66GB. I understand the category is trying to tell me how much stuff I have synced from my computer to phone. But it's counting it as a separate storage category and reducing what the stats say I have left as available space. That's the issue a number of us are encountering here.
Update: iphone 12, 64GB, 17.0.1
I would delete random apps and race to back up the phone before whatever is wrong filled up storage. I was up at 63.xxGB constantly, delete some apps to get it down a couple gig, but would get so full that even the camera wouldn't work, no new messages. Missed a few good pics from my kids' soccer game...
Finally succeeded in backing up, then performed a Restore from Backup. After the restore, used storage dropped by ~20GB to about 45GB and has remained around that for 24h now. I'm calling it victory, and perhaps going back to my policy of never installing on day 1 of a X.0 release.
I would delete random apps and race to back up the phone before whatever is wrong filled up storage. I was up at 63.xxGB constantly, delete some apps to get it down a couple gig, but would get so full that even the camera wouldn't work, no new messages. Missed a few good pics from my kids' soccer game...
Finally succeeded in backing up, then performed a Restore from Backup. After the restore, used storage dropped by ~20GB to about 45GB and has remained around that for 24h now. I'm calling it victory, and perhaps going back to my policy of never installing on day 1 of a X.0 release.
Did that change the Synced Data reporting bug (what i am calling it) at all? I am afraid that a restore from backup will just include the bug again.
I guess I should not be surprised but here is a response I received from the tech support agent I was working with.
My apologies for any confusion and the phone tagging. Yes, I did get a response from them (the Apple engineers). They’ve informed me that with the new iOS 17 update, that your storage is showing your information correctly, and it’s behaving as designed. I’d sent you guidance on clearing storage maybe the first or second time we spoke, but if you need it, here’s a link:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201656
If you have any other issues in the future, please feel free to contact us.
It's a bit of a pain to do but if anyone else is having the synced content issue, please contact Apple Support thru the app on your phone. Fortunately, I have 256GB of storage so the extra storage reported in Synced Content is not killing me yet. But if it is, it can't hurt to contact them.
My apologies for any confusion and the phone tagging. Yes, I did get a response from them (the Apple engineers). They’ve informed me that with the new iOS 17 update, that your storage is showing your information correctly, and it’s behaving as designed. I’d sent you guidance on clearing storage maybe the first or second time we spoke, but if you need it, here’s a link:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201656
If you have any other issues in the future, please feel free to contact us.
It's a bit of a pain to do but if anyone else is having the synced content issue, please contact Apple Support thru the app on your phone. Fortunately, I have 256GB of storage so the extra storage reported in Synced Content is not killing me yet. But if it is, it can't hurt to contact them.
It will probably take a news outlet twisting it as an attempt to push sales of higher capacity phones before they’ll “look into the problem” and only then will they admit it’s a bug that affects a small number of users.
OK, I just unsynced all my music via iTunes. As seen in the pic above I had these storage figures before I did this
256GB - Total storage
177GB - Used Storage
Music - 67.65GB storage
Synced Content - 66.24 storage
Other Storage Categories
Photos Storage - 61.26
iOS (17.02) - 11.09
System Data - 11.52GB
By my reckoning - and maybe I am wrong here - by deleting my music and thus synced content, I should have gained about 133GB of storage, right? 67GB + 66GB = approx. 133.
Instead I gained approximately the amount of storage used by my music, 66.67GB. And after deleting my synced music, I now show 116GB used and 139.5GB free. The category synced content is no longer listed in my iPhone Storage section of settings.
So, if the Synced Content was really being double counted, should I have been left with about 200GB out of the 256?
Maybe Apple was correct and the Synced Data category is not being counted against total storage.
Thoughts.
Storage after unsyncing my Music:
256GB - Total storage
177GB - Used Storage
Music - 67.65GB storage
Synced Content - 66.24 storage
Other Storage Categories
Photos Storage - 61.26
iOS (17.02) - 11.09
System Data - 11.52GB
By my reckoning - and maybe I am wrong here - by deleting my music and thus synced content, I should have gained about 133GB of storage, right? 67GB + 66GB = approx. 133.
Instead I gained approximately the amount of storage used by my music, 66.67GB. And after deleting my synced music, I now show 116GB used and 139.5GB free. The category synced content is no longer listed in my iPhone Storage section of settings.
So, if the Synced Content was really being double counted, should I have been left with about 200GB out of the 256?
Maybe Apple was correct and the Synced Data category is not being counted against total storage.
Thoughts.
Storage after unsyncing my Music:
I don’t see a Synced Data presence at all on my phone, so in my mind the issue may be related but not the cause.
What confuses me - the Synced Data usage is about equal to the Music data usage (16GB) but I checked iTunes and I have music synch turned off. And the available storage shown in iTunes is way off from what the phone itself says (14 Pro Max, 17.0.2).
But synced data, I believe, only pertains to data, such as music, that has been saved to your computer and then transferred/synced via iTunes to your phone. My music is mostly years of ripping CDs via iTunes and then syncing that music with my phone.
When I unsynced that music/data, I didn't gain 133GB or storage (66GB for music and 67GB for synced content). I got 66GB of additional storage as the music was gone and the synced content category also went away.
So this leads me to believe that even though we see synced content listed in the storage bar and list under iPhone storage, it's not actually being counted against actual storage. It's misleading as heck and making many assume it is additional data taking up storage but now I am not so sure.
When I unsynced that music/data, I didn't gain 133GB or storage (66GB for music and 67GB for synced content). I got 66GB of additional storage as the music was gone and the synced content category also went away.
So this leads me to believe that even though we see synced content listed in the storage bar and list under iPhone storage, it's not actually being counted against actual storage. It's misleading as heck and making many assume it is additional data taking up storage but now I am not so sure.