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What is taking up my Icloud Storage Space?

dragon499

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My Photos and Camera only take up 2.7 Gig, yet after my last Icloud backup, I only have 53.5 gig free for Icloud Backup.

What is taking up all of the space?

My notes can't be more than a few meg; probably much smaller. I don't think Cloud space is used for Apps, since those are on the store servers, but, even if it were, my Apps alone are more than 5 gig, so thsi would not make sense.

What is taking up all of the space??
 

twerppoet

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Let's cover all the bases, in case you missed something:

In Settings > iCloud > Storage & Backup you can see the usages for any apps that use Documents and Data; both the total and for individual apps. Tap Show All if you have more apps than what s how. Tapping an app may show a more detailed breakdown of what's being stored, and may offer the ability to delete content (by swiping). Be careful what you delete. This removes it from the iPad as well as iCloud, and you may not be able to recover it with a restore.

Below that you can see your iCloud usage for the Mail app.

Select your device from the Backups list. You can see the current and next backup size. There is also a list of how much space each app is using, so you can break it down. Like the Documents & Data list you can tap Show All Apps to see more than the top five apps. You can also turn ON/OFF apps for those apps that you don't consider worth backing up.

I can't think of anything else that would take up your iCloud storage space.
 

zstairlessone

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I had the same problem a couple of times on my iPhone, once it was a lot of backup info hanging around and turning off the backups restarting and resetting backups cleared it. Now I have a one day change of just over 6 GB. I deleted all pictures and video, turned off almost every app for backup so my apps total just under 350 MB and mail is 443 MB yet a backup is almost 3 GB. I also have almost 8 GB of "other" when I look in iTunes.

I know this didn't help, but I wanted to let you know you aren't alone, and you can try the backup change to see if it works for you.
 

twerppoet

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The 'Other' in iTunes should not have any affect on your iCloud backup.

Deleting all your old backups and doing a manual one (after trimming) sounds like a pretty good strategy. Thanks for mentioning it.
 
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dragon499

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Something is off. I found the 'Next Backup Size, " which says "Camera Roll" 4.8 GB, however, ( I recently deleted a bunch of vids to shrink the camera roll) if I got to settings - general - usage - Photos & Camera is listed as 2.7 Gig.

I'm not sure how deleting my backup and re-backing up will fix this issue - but there isn't much harm in trying.

Any ideas?

Thanks
 

twerppoet

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Tap the Photos & Camera list item in the usage settings. It should break down the photos by Camera Roll, Albums, and Photo Stream (if I remember correctly). That should give you a better idea of where to go hunting for the problem.

However, only the Camera Roll should get backed up to iCloud, and you can turn that off if you like.

Also, it can sometimes take a restart to free up storage after stuff has been deleted. It shouldn't, but that's the way it is.

In case you don't know, a restart is done by pressing the power button until Slide To Power Off appears, and is slid. Wait for the iPad to completely shut down then hold the power button down for a couple seconds, or until the Apple Logo appears to turn it back on.

Good luck.
 
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dragon499

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Camera roll is taking up all of the (2.7 Gib) of storage. I tried restarting, as well as a hard restart by holding down the home and power buttons simultaneously. Neither helped as the "next backup," still shows 4.8 gig of camera roll data.
 

twerppoet

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I don't know what's going on then.

Try turning off Camera Roll in the next backup list, wait for the numbers to update (took about 30 seconds on my iPad) and turn it back on. I'm curious to see if that will force it to re-evaluate the camera roll library, and if that would make a difference. It make take several seconds to update the numbers again, or not.

I couldn't test it, since I generally leave the Camera Roll backup off. Pretty much everything ends up in Photo Stream anyway, and I tend to clean out my Camera Roll and Photo Stream every few days. I'm unlikely to lose anything I want to keep.
 
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dragon499

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I don't know what's going on then.

Try turning off Camera Roll in the next backup list, wait for the numbers to update (took about 30 seconds on my iPad) and turn it back on. I'm curious to see if that will force it to re-evaluate the camera roll library, and if that would make a difference. It make take several seconds to update the numbers again, or not.

I couldn't test it, since I generally leave the Camera Roll backup off. Pretty much everything ends up in Photo Stream anyway, and I tend to clean out my Camera Roll and Photo Stream every few days. I'm unlikely to lose anything I want to keep.


This worked - Thanks.

It was a little weird though - the option to turn off the Camera Roll backup warns that this will delete the camera roll from the last iCloud backup. I agreed, then both the next backup size and the size of my existing iCloud backup (I had already backed up after shrinking my camera roll) normalized. Then, to make sure everything was OK, I backed up again. Now, the current backup and next backup are showing the correct size.
 

twerppoet

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I'm glad it worked, though I'm a bit surprised. It was a shot in the dark.

It's only warning you that the Camera Roll won't be backed up anymore. It shouldn't have affected the backup already in iCloud, but given that backups usually happen automatically, every day, it is probably better that Apple word it in such a way that leaves little doubt that the Camera Roll will not be in the backup anymore.

Thanks for letting me know it worked. This has happened to a couple people in the past, and now we have another trick to try, perhaps first instead of last next time.
 
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dragon499

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Thanks again - But to be clear, the system indeed warned me that the Camera Roll would be deleted from the cloud. The notification appears to be a bug with the system as the simple math tells me that after I unslected the option to back up the Camera Roll, Apple performed the correct sync that it should have done the last time, and deleted the same Camera Roll stuff from the Cloud backup, that I had last deleted from my iPad.

Also, (I'll have to keep and eye on this) I don't think that (in spite of my settings) my backups happen automatically as whenever I check, the last backup is always time stampted the last time I manually backed up.
 

J. A.

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Thanks again - But to be clear, the system indeed warned me that the Camera Roll would be deleted from the cloud. The notification appears to be a bug with the system as the simple math tells me that after I unslected the option to back up the Camera Roll, Apple performed the correct sync that it should have done the last time, and deleted the same Camera Roll stuff from the Cloud backup, that I had last deleted from my iPad. Also, (I'll have to keep and eye on this) I don't think that (in spite of my settings) my backups happen automatically as whenever I check, the last backup is always time stampted the last time I manually backed up.
It should backup automatically, as soon as:
- you're connected to Wi-Fi
- you're charging your device and
- the screen is locked.
If one of these three points is missing, your iPad will not start updating on it's own.
 
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dragon499

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Thanks for the clarification. When I charge my device at night, my wifi is off, so this explains the lack of auto-backups.

It should backup automatically, as soon as:
- you're connected to Wi-Fi
- you're charging your device and
- the screen is locked.
If one of these three points is missing, your iPad will not start updating on it's own.
 

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