iPhone 14 Pro Max System Data - Storage Full - iPhone 14 Pro Max

[nicolairobinson]

Same issue here with my 14pro.
I found that turning off location, then resetting location and turning on location again is a temporary fix. But after two days my storage (512) is full again with more than 350GB system data 🤬

 

[Drom86]

May I ask what did you do exactly? Log out of iCloud entirely?

Where can I double check if the phone is “trying” to download something? (the movie thing could be true for me as well, I wanna try)

UPDATE: I think this did the trick!
I went back to my old iPhone (from which the original backup was taken) to check which movies were downloaded there. There were 3 for a total of exactly 18gb (the same amount I’ve seen taken by system data every time I connected to a Wi-Fi) and those weren’t downloaded to my new iPhone.
I downloaded them manually and now the iPhone is happy and is not inflating system data every time it connects to my Wi-Fi!

try it if you can!

I’m now at 24h with multiple connections to Wi-Fi and no system data increase!

 

[nicolairobinson]

I’m now at 24h with multiple connections to Wi-Fi and no system data increase!

It worked!!! You are my hero 💪🏻

 

[tonymabey]

Same issues as above… running latest updates on 256Gb 14 Pro Max. Have found I had three bought movies in iTunes not downloaded and with the cloud symbol. Manually downloaded them and rebooted. So far system storage has been stable. For now.

Overnight was stable…

 

[maxrudberg]

I’m now at 24h with multiple connections to Wi-Fi and no system data increase!

I’m cautiously optimistic that this was the issue! I for some reason had this listed under the Music app. I also found that I had pending downloads inside Disney+, so that might be worth checking as well. I’ve restarted so my phone and was on Wi-Fi, System Storage seemingly sitting at 9 GB without any increases 🤞 I’ll report back if the storage jumps up again. But it makes sense that this would be the cause since it only happens on Wi-Fi and jumped so many GBs so quickly.

 

[H2K1B]

I’m cautiously optimistic that this was the issue! I for some reason had this listed under the Music app. I also found that I had pending downloads inside Disney+, so that might be worth checking as well. I’ve restarted so my phone and was on Wi-Fi, System Storage seemingly sitting at 9 GB without any increases 🤞 I’ll report back if the storage jumps up again. But it makes sense that this would be the cause since it only happens on Wi-Fi and jumped so many GBs so quickly.

Yes me too! I, like many others, found that the system data was only growing when the phone was connected to WiFi, not when on 4G/5G. This makes sense because movies and other iCloud related downloads will only attempt to download when connected to WiFi.

I downloaded the movies manually through the AppleTV+ app and the system data hasn't grown for 5 days. Think this might be the fix! Would deffo recommend having a look at movies, photos, songs etc that might be trying to download from the cloud.

 

[Paul#6]

Yes me too! I, like many others, found that the system data was only growing when the phone was connected to WiFi, not when on 4G/5G. This makes sense because movies and other iCloud related downloads will only attempt to download when connected to WiFi.

I downloaded the movies manually through the AppleTV+ app and the system data hasn't grown for 5 days. Think this might be the fix! Would deffo recommend having a look at movies, photos, songs etc that might be trying to download from the cloud.

I’ve looked and can’t find anything that hasn’t downloaded properly. I do have movies and tv shows that are not downloaded to phone but I didn’t have them all downloaded on my last phone as took up too much space. Should I try and just download them all and see if that helps?

 

[H2K1B]

I’ve looked and can’t find anything that hasn’t downloaded properly. I do have movies and tv shows that are not downloaded to phone but I didn’t have them all downloaded on my last phone as took up too much space. Should I try and just download them all and see if that helps?

Hi Paul, yes I would try that! It's best to try it and see what happens. maxrudberg mentioned that they had Disney+ downloads that could have been the issue so try some film/tv apps that allow downloads and let us know how you get on

 

[themadboatmechanic]

I’m now at 24h with multiple connections to Wi-Fi and no system data increase!

Good morning,

I’m trying to figure this issue out as we all are. It seems you found a fix? I’m reading through your posts trying to make sense of it. I can confirm also it only goes up over Wi-Fi. After that are you saying it’s trying to download all shows and movies from iTunes even though we haven’t asked them to download? Would wiping the phone and starting over via laptop be better? Is there an option to turn off media downloads?

Thanks

 

[Drom86]

Good morning,

I’m trying to figure this issue out as we all are. It seems you found a fix? I’m reading through your posts trying to make sense of it. I can confirm also it only goes up over Wi-Fi. After that are you saying it’s trying to download all shows and movies from iTunes even though we haven’t asked them to download? Would wiping the phone and starting over via laptop be better? Is there an option to turn off media downloads?

Thanks

I’ll try to elaborate a bit better.

I don’t think the new iPhone is trying to download “all” shows and movies, in my case it was trying to download the 3 movies that were downloaded on the device the backup was generated from (in my case, my old 12 Pro Max).

Infact, each and every other time I have ever restored from a backup (on other iPhones and iOS), all the movies previously downloaded were automatically downloaded as well.

So I went back on my old 12 Pro Max, noticed that 3 movies for a total of 18gb (the same amount of system data taken on the new 14 each time I connected to a wifi) were stored in the TV app and verified that those 3 movies were not downloaded together with the backup on my 14.

At that point my hypothesis was that the phone was trying to “reserve” the space necessary for those 3 movies but wasn’t actually downloading them, repeating this process over and over. I downloaded those 3 exact movies and the issue disappeared. Since then I also deleted them and system data hasn’t grown ever since.

It’s been about 2 days now.

I hope this clarified my process 😊

 

[Kward21]

I’ll try to elaborate a bit better.

I don’t think the new iPhone is trying to download “all” shows and movies, in my case it was trying to download the 3 movies that were downloaded on the device the backup was generated from (in my case, my old 12 Pro Max).

Infact, each and every other time I have ever restored from a backup (on other iPhones and iOS), all the movies previously downloaded were automatically downloaded as well.

So I went back on my old 12 Pro Max, noticed that 3 movies for a total of 18gb (the same amount of system data taken on the new 14 each time I connected to a wifi) and verified that those 3 movies were not downloaded together with the backup on my 14.

At that point my hypothesis was that the phone was trying to “reserve” the space necessary for those 3 movies but wasn’t actually downloading them, repeating this process over and over. I downloaded those 3 exact movies and the issue disappeared. Since then I also deleted them and system data hasn’t grown ever since.

It’s been about 2 days now.

I hope this clarified my process 😊

You have saved me! Your post guided me to look at my old phone in the Apple TV app. I had 2 movies and 1 tv show downloaded to the device. I went into the app on my new phone and manually downloaded those three items and my problem was immediately solved.

Prior to this I had deleted so many apps and changed so many things on my phone that did not work permanently. (And spent a painful afternoon on the phone with Apple tech, who could not help at all.)

I was so confident this was the issue (thanks to this thread) that I went back to my initial backup of my old phone from the cloud and reinstalled that on my new phone. I immediately went to the Apple TV app and again manually downloaded those three items (as they, once again, did not come automatically) and my phone was been perfect ever since.

Thank you! Thank you!

 

[Drom86]

You have saved me! Your post guided me to look at my old phone in the Apple TV app. I had 2 movies and 1 tv show downloaded to the device. I went into the app on my new phone and manually downloaded those three items and my problem was immediately solved.

Prior to this I had deleted so many apps and changed so many things on my phone that did not work permanently. (And spent a painful afternoon on the phone with Apple tech, who could not help at all.)

I was so confident this was the issue (thanks to this thread) that I went back to my initial backup of my old phone from the cloud and reinstalled that on my new phone. I immediately went to the Apple TV app and again manually downloaded those three items (as they, once again, did not come automatically) and my phone was been perfect ever since.

Thank you! Thank you!

It was totally a group effort, I was reading this thread these days as well and got many clues to what (I hope) is the permanent solution 😊

 

[Paul#6]

It was totally a group effort, I was reading this thread these days as well and got many clues to what (I hope) is the permanent solution 😊

It was totally a group effort, I was reading this thread these days as well and got many clues to what (I hope) is the permanent solution 😊

So once you download all the movies etc, can you remove them off the phone and back to cloud and phone is still ok?

 

[Drom86]

So once you download all the movies etc, can you remove them off the phone and back to cloud and phone is still ok?

Yep, I deleted them from local storage and I have no issue

 

[upandown]

On day 1 of getting this iphone 14 pro, I did a clean install of iOS16, not using any backups and setting up as new, and I’ve had the issue and still have it.

Im definitely not discrediting the above possible cause and solution but I want to add that backup syncing doesn’t seem to be the only culprit.

I had this issue last year and the only fix was setting up my 13pro as new with no backup. It didn’t seem to work this time. To try and help the situation I deleted all my movies off my 13Pro before wiping it and setting up my 14Pro. Hopefully this extra information sheds more light or lack there of.

Personally I believe the system is working as designed but it’s excessive and Apple gives us zero help to understand it’s logic.

Edit: Last year it was shared that plugging the phone into iTunes or Finder on a Mac and then simply syncing it, would fix it. I think I saw it work a few times but it’s definitely not working this time.

 

[upandown]

Yep, I deleted them from local storage and I have no issue

My old phone has been wiped and sold, is there any way to see what movie media was downloaded? If not then there’s no way to know what to download and delete for a fix.

 

[Drom86]

My old phone has been wiped and sold, is there any way to see what movie media was downloaded? If not then there’s no way to know what to download and delete for a fix.

I wouldn’t know, sorry.

Maybe trying to restore the backup on a different device? And even this would be assuming that the “not downloading Apple TV contents“ part is specific of the iPhone 14 and not a generic backup restore issue, which would be even weirder than it already is ^^’

another tedious, not sure but possible way (if your purchase library is not unbelievably big) would be to download and then delete all the movies (even one at a time) you have. This way you would be certain to also download whatever was downloaded on your older device (and backup) but I can see how this could be unfeasible for some.

Just trying to think together here, I have no other proof other than what I shared earlier ^^’

 

[themadboatmechanic]

Soooo, we have several tv series's, movies in the appletv library. So much that all the media cannot be be downloaded then deleted. We are downloading each one then deleting it to no avail yet… will update but is there another method maybe via iTunes on the MacBook?

 

[Drom86]

Soooo, we have several tv series's, movies in the appletv library. So much that all the media cannot be be downloaded then deleted. We are downloading each one then deleting it to no avail yet… will update but is there another method maybe via iTunes on the MacBook?

My hypothesis is that you have to “convince” your iPhone that it downloaded all that it should have, hence that there is no need to reserve storage as “system data”, so I don’t think it would work.

But again, it’s just my hypothesis, I have a couple of dozens purchased movies (there are no shows sold in Italy via iTunes) and I could check exactly which were the 3 downloaded ones, I can’t say much more than that

 

[Paul#6]

I had about 15 movies and 20 Tv shows on my iPhone Apple TV app. They have always been on iCloud on old phone and new one as they took up too much space. I decided to download all the movies from cloud onto the new phone then I rebooted it. Since then I’ve not gone above 15gb of data. After an hour I took them all back off and still been ok. Only been about 6 hours so far but fingers crossed it’s sorted it. I didn’t even do the tv shows just the movies.

 

[upandown]

I wouldn’t know, sorry.

Maybe trying to restore the backup on a different device? And even this would be assuming that the “not downloading Apple TV contents“ part is specific of the iPhone 14 and not a generic backup restore issue, which would be even weirder than it already is ^^’

another tedious, not sure but possible way (if your purchase library is not unbelievably big) would be to download and then delete all the movies (even one at a time) you have. This way you would be certain to also download whatever was downloaded on your older device (and backup) but I can see how this could be unfeasible for some.

Just trying to think together here, I have no other proof other than what I shared earlier ^^’

Forsure, I appreciate the collaborative ideas.

Did you delete them from the Apple TV app or within iPhone storage in settings? I doubt it would matter but just curious.

 

[Drom86]

Forsure, I appreciate the collaborative ideas.

Did you delete them from the Apple TV app or within iPhone storage in settings? I doubt it would matter but just curious.

From the settings app.

And btw, on my old iPhone 12 Pro Max they were downloaded at the best quality, on the 14 I downloaded them by mistake at “Fast download” (in the apple tv settings) and that was already enough to fix the issue anyway.

 

[upandown]

From the settings app.

And btw, on my old iPhone 12 Pro Max they were downloaded at the best quality, on the 14 I downloaded them by mistake at “Fast download” (in the apple tv settings) and that was already enough to fix the issue anyway.

Unfortunately no dice. It didn’t work for me.

By definition it’s a multi use storage folder, so I believe more than just movies and shows can hang it up. Ie music, photos etc.

 

[themadboatmechanic]

My hypothesis is that you have to “convince” your iPhone that it downloaded all that it should have, hence that there is no need to reserve storage as “system data”, so I don’t think it would work.

But again, it’s just my hypothesis, I have a couple of dozens purchased movies (there are no shows sold in Italy via iTunes) and I could check exactly which were the 3 downloaded ones, I can’t say much more than that

Update- it worked downloading everything purchased in “itunes” (AppleTv) and then deleting the download. Well, 3 hours later and the system data hasn’t increased on Wi-Fi. Thanks SO much! I hope there is a patch for this so everyone doesn’t get suckered into buying more storage..

 

[Breenie13]

I have had the same issue with my iPhone 14 Pro…system files taking up 200+ GB. As silly as it sounds I think I found an answer. I deleted Whatsapp and restarted my phone. Haven’t had the issue since. Thought I’d share.