iPad and iTunes don't agree on free space...

[Stupid Little Genius]

This might be a silly question, but it's getting to the stage where it's just plain stupid. I ran out of space again, so was clearing some room. My iPad is saying that I have 3.2GB free. But iTunes is saying I have 5.28GB free. I get that there is a bit of a difference between the two sometimes, but that's two GB that seems to be unaccounted for according to iTunes. I have no idea what is going on, but I've tried everything to get them to agree. Nothing works!!



Any ideas??

 

[J. A.]

Welcome to iPF!

What exactly did you try to get them to agree? It will be easier for us to help when we know where to start.

So here's something that you might have tried, just in case you didn't:

Reset your iPad. This won't remove data or change settings.
To reset, press and hold Home and Power button until you see the Apple logo. Let go of both, your iPad will power up on it's own.

 

[Stupid Little Genius]

Hi! Thanks for answering!! And for the help!

I tried the turning off and on again thingy. I tried backing up several times in a row. I tried deleting some apps to see if the size changed more on one that the other, but it just sort of seemed random and didn't free up much space according to the iPad. I tried deleting all my books. That freed up more space on the laptop view than the iPad view again. But then it settled back into a 2GB gap again.

Sort of restoring to factory and then restoring from back up I'm at a loss, and I hate doing that unless I have to...

Do you think I have to??

 

[J. A.]

If you didn't do so, try the reset I suggested on my first reply. This won't change anything on your device, it might resolve the issue with the non identical storage space.

Then connect your iPad to iTunes. Look at the storage there. Is there something like "Other" (colour is orange), and how much storage space does it take?

 

[Stupid Little Genius]

Hi again^^ Sorry, I should have said I tried the reset when you mentioned in, but it didn't make a difference.

I had a big problem with the other space a little while ago. It was 8gb, which was stupid. But I did the resort thingy and managed to get it down. As long as I don't stream anything from my iCloud, it doesn't go up again. Right now it's a happy 1.45gb. Much better than the months that I put up with no space!! But any time I stream a movie or TV programme, it grows in size again...

The weird thing is, when it's backing up, the space jumps to over 8GB free, and as soon as it's synced it does back to 5.2 again. But the iPad still says 3.2Gb...

 

[J. A.]

There are two kinds of storage in Settings - General - Usage.

The first one is storage on your iPad. That's the one that should be about the same as in iTunes.

The second one is iCloud storage. iCloud saves your backups, photos, and everything else you enabled in Settings - iCloud. The free storage there will not be the same as in iTunes.

Maybe you're looking at iCloud storage, that's why the number is different. Just a guess.

 

[Stupid Little Genius]

No, I'm not looking at the wrong one... I might be stupid, but I'm not that stupid!! Well, I probably am... But not this time!! Or at least I hope not... It's probably easier to show you the difference I see, so I took a photo This is what I see when one is plugged into the other!!

 

[J. A.]

After seeing your image, I connected my iPad to my MacBook, and guess what I got?

It's possible that in my case this happens because of the photos I import to the iPad from my camera. I use RAW and JPEG. Although the RAW files don't appear in the photos app, they could take some storage space. I'll have to save the photos from my Canon somewhere else than the Photos app, maybe that'll help.

Maybe it's the same in your case.
As you said, you're streaming videos: make sure they're removed properly. It seems that the iPad doesn't always delete them completely.

 

[giradman]

This might be a silly question, but it's getting to the stage where it's just plain stupid. I ran out of space again, so was clearing some room. My iPad is saying that I have 3.2GB free. But iTunes is saying I have 5.28GB free. I get that there is a bit of a difference between the two sometimes, but that's two GB that seems to be unaccounted for according to iTunes. I have no idea what is going on, but I've tried everything to get them to agree. Nothing works!!

Hello - calculation of storage capacity (present originally or remaining) depends in part on the definition of a Gigabyte, i.e. there are base 2 vs. base 10 amounts; in base 10, 1 GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes; in base 2, 1 GB = 1,073,741,824 bytes - iTunes is calculating your remaining storage in base 10; while in iOS, base 2 is being used and will be lower - e.g. 5.28 GB divided by 1.074 = 4.91 GB which explains your discrepancy, in part at least - for further information see this Apple Support Article.

My 64 GB iPad Air 2 has 22.7 GB storage remaining; iTunes reports 29.2 GB, and even using the calculation above decreases the iTunes value to 27.2 GB - I suspect that the iOS storage is being seen differently by these two operating systems (and of course, there may be other files that are seen by one and not the other operating system?).

What you have not told us which is important is the iPad model you own and its original storage capacity - you are running low of what storage is left which might impact on the operation of your device - please post back. Dave

 

[Stupid Little Genius]

Ooooh, duuuh... I thought I did that with the first post! I'm obviously not all here today!! I have an iPad 3. It's a 32GB one. And I'm forever running out of space! I wouldn't be having this problem but I sort of tried out Repulique and it's so good! Makes me wish they made half life for iPad and all the ones I used to play! Anyway, I went and bought the series pass, and tried to download Ep 2 which pushed me over the top... It seems to be running just fine, especially now I have either 3 or 5 GB free, as opposed to the 900mb I had last night. Mind you I didn't notice any issues then either. It was only when I tried to back up that it decided it had no space.

I guess that does explain the difference. But it's still annoying!! And now I have to delete more stuff if I want to play ep 3 or I'm going to have the same problem all over again!!

 

[J. A.]

A backup is saved to iCloud, not to your iPad's storage.

Do you remember what the message that told you there's no storage any more exactly said?

 

[Stupid Little Genius]

No, my backup doesn't save to the iCloud. There's no way it's a big enough cloud for that I backup to my macbook. The message said "storage almost full" It also said I could manage the storage in the settings.

 

[J. A.]

No, my backup doesn't save to the iCloud. There's no way it's a big enough cloud for that I backup to my macbook. The message said "storage almost full" It also said I could manage the storage in the settings.

Sorry, I assumed you're backing up to iCloud.

 

[giradman]

No, my backup doesn't save to the iCloud. There's no way it's a big enough cloud for that I backup to my macbook. The message said "storage almost full" It also said I could manage the storage in the settings.

Hi again - I backup my iPad Air 2 to my MBPro via iTunes AND also to the Cloud, which requires only 2.9 GB of my 5 GB 'free' allowance - now, my iDevice has 30+ GB used, so a backup to the cloud is really 'trimmed down', e.g. all of your apps are not stored, just your data; your iTunes purchases are simply inventoried (can always be re-downloaded), and so forth - check HERE for further information - my suggestion is to do both.

NOW, back to your storage issue, you really should have more 'free storage space' on a 32 GB device - so let me suggest that you try to upload a few images that may help us figure out what is on your iPad: 1) In iTunes w/ your device attached, try to do a screen capture on your laptop and post - below is my iPad Air 2 showing the storage used and the categories; 2) On your iPad, go to General -> Usage -> Manage Storage which will generate a list of all of your apps and their current usage (both the app & its data) - see second image below; see if you can post similar pics - Dave
.

 

[Stupid Little Genius]

Ok, so I have a little bit of an App problem... As in I'm actually embraced by how many I have, and that's the space issue. Well that and books, but I deleted all of those in an effort to free space! I reclaimed a GB from that yesterday!

Something weird happened over night. Seriously... I posted the images, with my free space. And iPhotos was taking up 3gb. I went to bed, and all was the same. I read for a couple of hours, and then went to sleep. I woke up, read your post and went to the usage thingy, and now iPhotos is taking up only 1.4gb. I have no idea what my ipad was doing last night while I was sleeping

Anyway! As I said. Too many apps! But I screen shot them all! Of course this now means the numbers are all screwy again. iTunes now says 6.8, and the iPad says 4.4...

So here's my screen shots!! Sorry there are so many... And yes, I'm going to do a mass delete, even though I love my apps!! I need space to put all the book back on!