Losing available space on iPad Air even when Im not downloading!

[hannahbear11]

I have an iPad Air and recently I have noticed that I am losing available space on it even when I am not downloaded anything and deleted loads. There might be something I am missing but I would appreciate any advice oh it is also happening on my iPhone 5 as well, I had 1.1GB left on there the other day (not much I know) but when I checked again today there was only 230MB...please help, theres gotta be something I can do.

....maybe Ive posted this in the wrong part of the forum....

 

[J. A.]

Try resetting your iPad: press and hold Home and Power button until the Apple logo appears, then release both and let your device power up on it's own. This kind of reset won't remove data or change settings. It could help with glitches you're experiencing.

What might take your storage space are attachments downloaded from emails in the built in Mail app, Safari history and reading list, e.g.
Try removing your email accounts and setting them up again (Settings - Mail, Contacts, Calendar), as well as clearing history and website data in Settings - Safari, and getting rid of items in your reading list in Safari.

If the above doesn't help, connect your iPad to a computer, to see what's taking your storage space on the iPad. If there's a big amount of "Other", get rid of some of it by restoring your device. Use iTunes to restore it. Before restoring, make sure there's a most recent backup.

Hope that helps.

 

[hannahbear11]

Thank you I did the reset, and deleted my email accounts and set them back up again. Managed to go from 200MB to just over 700MB!

Whats the safari reading list? Also, could any of my apps be downloading stuff that I am not aware of?

Thank you for your help!

 

[J. A.]

When you tap the book icon at the top right in Safari, you'll get 2 or three options:

If you don't know what the Reading List is, you won't use it, I suppose, and it should be blank when you tap the icon. It's possible that you added a website by accident, when trying to create a bookmark. To get rid of sites saved to the reading list, slide the site appearing there to the left and select Delete:


If you use Background App Refresh (Settings - General - Background App Refresh), apps that are still in the app switcher, are allowed to refresh their content or look for updates, when your iPad is connected to Wi-Fi or a cellular network.
This can have an influence on your battery life or cellular usage. It shouldn't mess with your storage space, though. You can try disabling certain apps there, and see if something changes.

Usually, apps won't download content without your action.

 

[hannahbear11]

Thank you ive just tried some of those steps and even now gone from 700MB down to 176MB

Is it worth keeping my mail de-activated?

Its so frustrating can't even delete much more, otherwise whats the point in having a 12GB device when I can hardly store anything on it

 

[J. A.]

Your mail won't take that much storage space, in my case (4 accounts) it's about 16 MB.

On your iPad, take a look at Settings - General - Storage & iCloud Usage - Storage - Manage Storage.
The apps that need most of your storage space will appear at the top of the list there. Maybe this will show you how to get back some storage space.

It's weird that you lost storage space again by following my instructions, though. If possible, connect your iPad to a computer and take a look at it's storage in iTunes.
As recommended above: if something called "Other" (orange colour) needs a remarkable part of the iPad's storage space, restore your device.

 

[hannahbear11]

Will I have to delete the apps that take up the most storage space? And if I have to restore will I have to back up first? Sims Freeplay is taking up lots, but I love it lol.

Haha can you tell I'm not good at this!

 

[hannahbear11]

Its saying on my laptop that the 'Other' is 6.83 GB!! What is 'Other'? What kind of things would that be, because thats an awful lot of space its taking up

 

[Ibill]

I had the same problem. Mine was pretty fast until the last update. Did the hard restart twice a day to make it run half way decent. Then I got the dreaded "out of storage" message or close to that. Went through a deleted a bunch of little used high GB apps, even had a couple of photo apps that were doing the same thing. Gained over3 Gs and every thing seems faster then ever, we'll see how it goes.

 

[J. A.]

6.3 GB of Other data is way too much.

Other consists of Safari history, bookmarks; text message and email attachments; calendar entries; album art; contact photos; app data (saved games, e.g.), ...

I've already told you to clear history and website data, and remove and reinstall your email accounts. It's also possible to delete apps and reinstall them, this could free up some storage space as well. If there are apps that you don't use any more, delete them without reinstalling, as suggested by @Ibill above.

In your case, I'd recommend restoring the iPad using iTunes. Make sure there's a recent backup. You'll be able to restore from that backup afterwards. If your device is not up to date, it will be running the latest software version as well, btw. (iOS 9.0.2).

If restoring from a backup doesn't help getting rid of a huge part of these Other data, you might need to set up your device as new, without backup.

 

[hannahbear11]

Thank you so much for all your help yeah I can restore and it will upgrade to iOS9...ive heard people are having problems with iOS9 and others its working fine, is it worth upgrading? It won't let me restore without upgrading...

Aah yes, I have a lot of bookmarks! I have taken your advice and cleared my history and cookies and that did work...also deleted all of my music but gained a bit of space by doing that.

 

[J. A.]

Here are the new features: iOS 9 - What’s New - Apple (UK)

After updating, reset your iPad, as described above. The software will need one or two days to settle in. It should work without problems afterwards.

 

[hannahbear11]

The new iOS9 looks pretty good! ill maybe do my iphone while im at it as the same thing is happening with that