berndbausch
Level 1 (1 points)

Q: ipad memory management - ibooks, photos

My ipad2 has 32GB memory, of which only 1GB is free. I believe that this is the main reason to cause it to be very slow, and I would like to remove documents to add another 1GB to free memory.

 

My two biggest memory consumers are photos (1.1GB) and ibooks (almost 1GB).

  • I have deleted all but 80 photos, which had no effect at all on the memory consumption. It's unlikely that each photo uses up 12.5MB on average. How can I make room in the photos app?
  • For ibooks, I would like to know which documents I should delete. That is, I need a report of documents and their size, sorted by size. Is that possible?
  • In general, can I find out how much memory a document in any app occupies?

 

Thanks for any input.

 

Bernd Bausch

iPad 2 Wi-Fi, iOS 8.0.2

Posted on Sep 5, 2015 7:46 PM

by elcpu,Solvedanswer
elcpu elcpu
Level 6 (16,265 points)
Photos for Mac
A:

Hi Bernd, I am surprised you did not address your responses to me as I am the one that pointed you in the right direction, the bloated Other!!!  You are very much correct, Apple devices can be a pain, between my wife and I we own 5 of them, 2 iPhones, 2 iPads and a MacBookPro. I find that the hardware on my MBP (and also the iPads) is unbeatable, my display, trackpad, keyboard, etc. are far better than on my Dell PC, however as far as operating systems go, my wife and I still use our 2 Dell W7 PCs as our main working platforms (paid $650 for each of the Dells and $1,300 for the MBP I am on now so go figure).

 

At any rate, I can help you with your issue, low space and all.....  Another drawback of iOS is that if you sync to a different PC, iTunes will wipe out any purchases you made under the other iTunes Library in your iPad, it will not wipe them out on your original library (in case you are interested in the reason, just ask me and I will explain, it has to do with profits). As long as you are not concerned about purchased material (songs downloaded from the iTunes Store, books, etc.) the backup to the other PC will work.

 

I can indeed understand why you are "unhappy" but here is how to resolve it. First realize that the backup that you have on your other PC will contain all your native and free apps, all your pictures in Camera Roll (as long as you are not using iCloud Photo Library) and all your settings., data, etc. As I said, it will not let you restore purchased material from the iTunes Store (don't know what it will do with purchased material from 3rd parties like Amazon). If this is not a concern then do as follow:

1. As I understand it, you now have a good backup on another PC.

2. Disconnect your iPad from the PC and plug it to its charger on the wall. On your iPad, go to Settings > General > Reset > Erase All Content and Settings and then let it complete. It will take time.

3. The steps above will wipe your iPad clean including getting rid of that record breaking Other (I will have to update my record book). It will also install a fresh / clean copy of the newest iOS, 8.4.1, with no corruption.

4. The process above will ask you if you want to set up as New or from iCloud backup. Choose New.

5. After it completes, connect your pad to the new computer where your backup resides and then restore the backup. You should now have a clean iPad, a minimal Other with likely 300-500 MBs if that, and all the settings and apps I mentioned above.

 

There is a remote possibility that restoring the backup will bring back the corruption (unlikely) and if so you will have to repeat the process above, choosing New again but not restoring and thus having to set everything from scratch - this is not likely but at least you will have a working iPad.

 

Please post back and let me know how you fair out. I am in Houston, Texas, 7 am here - I suspect are in the EU likely 2 pm there. I will be monitoring this site for further posts in case you have questions....

 

Cheers,

Carlos, my real name instead of ElCPU....

Posted on Sep 6, 2015 5:24 AM

Close
berndbausch

Q: ipad memory management - ibooks, photos

  • All replies
  • Helpful answers

  • by Ralph9430,Helpful

    Ralph9430 Ralph9430 Sep 6, 2015 11:51 PM in response to berndbausch
    Level 6 (18,243 points)
    Apple Watch
    Sep 6, 2015 11:51 PM in response to berndbausch

    With iOS 8 it is recommended that you have 15-20% of the storage space on the device free.  For a 16 GB device that is 2.4-3.2 GB free. For a 32 GB device that is 4.8-6.4 GB free. For a 64 GB device that is 9.6-12.8 GB free.

     

    When you delete photos from the Camera Roll they are moved to the Recently Deleted album in the Photos app. They will reside there for 30 days to allow you to recover the photos should you device you really don't want to delete them. If your are sure that you want them deleted delete them from the Recently Deleted album.

     

    To determine exactly which apps are using the mose space on your iPad use the Settings app.

    Settings > General > Usage > Manage Storage (in the Storage section)

  • by elcpu,Helpful

    elcpu elcpu Sep 6, 2015 11:51 PM in response to berndbausch
    Level 6 (16,265 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Sep 6, 2015 11:51 PM in response to berndbausch

    Bernd,

     

    Let me offer a suggestion regarding memory usage. Connect your iPad to your computer, open iTunes, select your iPad and on the Summary page at the bottom there will be a bar showing usage. Look at a category called "Other" (Other does not show up on the phone itself but does show up when viewed on iTunes and takes up actual memory). If this Other is larger than 500 MBs or so, you likely have a corrupted App taking up space. I have seen some Others as large as 15 GBs. If the Other is under 500 MBs just ignore the rest of my post. If larger than 1 GB or so, take a look at the article below and then do a Restore using the Apple instructions that follow. This will reduce your Other significantly and free up memory.

     

    http://osxdaily.com/2013/07/24/remove-other-data-storage-iphone-ipad/

     

    Use iTunes to restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod to factory settings - Apple Support

  • by berndbausch,

    berndbausch berndbausch Sep 6, 2015 12:18 AM in response to Ralph9430
    Level 1 (1 points)
    Sep 6, 2015 12:18 AM in response to Ralph9430

    Thanks Ralph. Deleting 140 photos this way freed about 200MB, according to Manage Storage. Still, close to 900MB are still used, for 80 photos. Which leaves me scratching my head. Also the app with the largest memory consumption is now ibooks, and again I have no way to find out which of the documents in ibooks are the worst offenders (or have I?).

     

    These points are not that important anymore, as I found that memory category "Other" has over 16GB on my 32 GB machine, thereby breaking elcpu's record. The only problem I have to solve now is how to backup my 32GB ipad to a PC which only has 85GB free space, which itunes claims is not enough.

     

    If I may rant a little bit? I don't understand why people are so crazy about Apple products. The ipad (the only Apple thing I own, and I doubt there will be any other) is about as clunky and unusable as all my Windows and Linux PCs, and is a closed system that is hard to troubleshoot, and costs much more.

     

    Still, I appreciate your help. Both of you pointed me in the right direction.

  • by berndbausch,

    berndbausch berndbausch Sep 6, 2015 1:39 AM in response to berndbausch
    Level 1 (1 points)
    Sep 6, 2015 1:39 AM in response to berndbausch

    In case you are interested in an intermediate status, I was able to backup the ipad to a different PC. Now, trying to restore the backup, I am told there is not enough space on the ipad to restore it. And by the way, we are now at 17GB space consumed by "Other".

     

    So, one solution to removing "Other" space is backup and restore. But it only works if there is enough space on the ipad. Can you understand why I am unhappy?

  • by elcpu,Solvedanswer

    elcpu elcpu Sep 6, 2015 5:24 AM in response to berndbausch
    Level 6 (16,265 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Sep 6, 2015 5:24 AM in response to berndbausch

    Hi Bernd, I am surprised you did not address your responses to me as I am the one that pointed you in the right direction, the bloated Other!!!  You are very much correct, Apple devices can be a pain, between my wife and I we own 5 of them, 2 iPhones, 2 iPads and a MacBookPro. I find that the hardware on my MBP (and also the iPads) is unbeatable, my display, trackpad, keyboard, etc. are far better than on my Dell PC, however as far as operating systems go, my wife and I still use our 2 Dell W7 PCs as our main working platforms (paid $650 for each of the Dells and $1,300 for the MBP I am on now so go figure).

     

    At any rate, I can help you with your issue, low space and all.....  Another drawback of iOS is that if you sync to a different PC, iTunes will wipe out any purchases you made under the other iTunes Library in your iPad, it will not wipe them out on your original library (in case you are interested in the reason, just ask me and I will explain, it has to do with profits). As long as you are not concerned about purchased material (songs downloaded from the iTunes Store, books, etc.) the backup to the other PC will work.

     

    I can indeed understand why you are "unhappy" but here is how to resolve it. First realize that the backup that you have on your other PC will contain all your native and free apps, all your pictures in Camera Roll (as long as you are not using iCloud Photo Library) and all your settings., data, etc. As I said, it will not let you restore purchased material from the iTunes Store (don't know what it will do with purchased material from 3rd parties like Amazon). If this is not a concern then do as follow:

    1. As I understand it, you now have a good backup on another PC.

    2. Disconnect your iPad from the PC and plug it to its charger on the wall. On your iPad, go to Settings > General > Reset > Erase All Content and Settings and then let it complete. It will take time.

    3. The steps above will wipe your iPad clean including getting rid of that record breaking Other (I will have to update my record book). It will also install a fresh / clean copy of the newest iOS, 8.4.1, with no corruption.

    4. The process above will ask you if you want to set up as New or from iCloud backup. Choose New.

    5. After it completes, connect your pad to the new computer where your backup resides and then restore the backup. You should now have a clean iPad, a minimal Other with likely 300-500 MBs if that, and all the settings and apps I mentioned above.

     

    There is a remote possibility that restoring the backup will bring back the corruption (unlikely) and if so you will have to repeat the process above, choosing New again but not restoring and thus having to set everything from scratch - this is not likely but at least you will have a working iPad.

     

    Please post back and let me know how you fair out. I am in Houston, Texas, 7 am here - I suspect are in the EU likely 2 pm there. I will be monitoring this site for further posts in case you have questions....

     

    Cheers,

    Carlos, my real name instead of ElCPU....

  • by berndbausch,

    berndbausch berndbausch Sep 6, 2015 5:29 PM in response to elcpu
    Level 1 (1 points)
    Sep 6, 2015 5:29 PM in response to elcpu

    Carlos,

     

    thanks for your very complete insight. When writing my most recent message, I wanted to reply to both inputs and just clicked on one of the "reply" links available.

     

    Yes, I am half-way through a restoration. The process failed, so I thought I should first have Windows update itself. Now I have the larger problem that the PC that contains my backup and where I initiated the restore is sick and currently unable to run itunes or sometimes even to restart Windows. So, I have to solve this problem first, and/or find a way to transfer the backup to a working PC without the help of itunes. During this time, you won't hear much from me, except perhaps in a different forum thread

     

    I live in Japan by the way, 14 hours time difference to Texas. It's already Monday morning here.0

     

    Again many thanks for your dedication and for being that helpful.

     

    Bernd

  • by elcpu,

    elcpu elcpu Sep 6, 2015 5:34 PM in response to berndbausch
    Level 6 (16,265 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Sep 6, 2015 5:34 PM in response to berndbausch

    My pleasure, Bernd. Hope you get the PC working ok. Good luck.

  • by berndbausch,

    berndbausch berndbausch Sep 6, 2015 11:49 PM in response to elcpu
    Level 1 (1 points)
    Sep 6, 2015 11:49 PM in response to elcpu

    Well, I manage to factory-reset my ipad. So far so good. To my horror, though, the backup I made before resetting the device is nowhere to be found. So, I have a practically empty ipad (for some reason, an unimportant app and a few ibook documents found their way to the device), and what I need now is a representative from Apple that I can repeatedly punch in the nose. I don't think you can help me with that.

     

    Thanks again for all your help. Your recommendations were correct, but either the incredible user-unfriendlyness of itunes or its utter unreliability messed it up and destroyed tons of data that I would have liked to keep.

  • by elcpu,

    elcpu elcpu Sep 7, 2015 5:35 AM in response to berndbausch
    Level 6 (16,265 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Sep 7, 2015 5:35 AM in response to berndbausch

    Bernd,

    I cannot not offer you a nose to punch, but I will like to help you achieve your goal, not because you can give me points, you have already done so (and I could care less about them anyway), but because it would please me to do so.

     

    Before you give up, if you truly made a backup in iTunes, tunes should present it to you as an option from the Summary page. On the Summary Page of iTunes do you not see the "Restore Backup" Option on the right lower side? Please look at the screenshot below and look at the 2 Red Arrows. Under Latest Backups it should a list including backups "to iCloud" and "to this computer", see Blue Arrow. You can restore from either but look at the dates - you may want to restore from the computer even if it is older or alternatively from iCloud, nothing to lose at this point. If you want to restore from the computer backup, click on the left (see Green Arrow) to select "This computer" and then click on Restore Backup (the Red Arrows). Let me know if you do not see this, please.

     

    iTunes Summary Page 3.jpg

     

    If you do not see these backups (and I really hope you do) I can point you to the location on the computer where they reside in the hope you can find them and perhaps move them to another computer (doubtful and not easy). Open the Windows File Manger (WFM), click on Tools above, Folder Options, View, place a dot on "Show Hidden Files....", click on Apply, and then OK. The close WFM and open it again (< do not skip this step) and navigate to:

    OS(C:) > Users > Bernd (or whatever your user name is) > AppData > Roaming > Apple Computer > Mobile Sync > Backup > click on Backup and on the right side you will see the backups you have. See screen shot below. I have 2, one for my iPhone (Red Arrows) and one for my iPad. If you do not see any there you do not have backups under iTunes. Try the iCloud backup option above.

     

    WFM iTunes Backups 2.jpg

     

    Good luck my friend, where in Japan are you?

    Carlos

  • by berndbausch,

    berndbausch berndbausch Sep 7, 2015 7:03 PM in response to elcpu
    Level 1 (1 points)
    Sep 7, 2015 7:03 PM in response to elcpu

    Carlos, you really go out of your way to help me!

     

    Yes I did find the buttons, and when I click on Restore I do get the choice of four different backups. I applied them all, with the identical result that my ipad looked like a newborn baby.

     

    However, most probably I just misunderstand what "backup" and "restore" means in the world of iTunes. My expectation was to get the ipad restored to the exact same state as before the factory reset, minus the 17GB of "other" storage. That seems to be the wrong expectation. After reinstalling a few of my apps, I noticed that they had all my settings applied. Also (I should have noticed that from the beginning) details like the home page background and the picture that appears when switching the device on were according to my settings.

     

    So perhaps "restore" only means restoring the settings, and I still have to download the apps. Right now anyway, my ipad has all its data back (with the exception of ibooks, but I have a copy of those on my PC), and has its original response time back. Because I can tell you that lack of flash memory makes your device extremely slow, e.g. entering text lags by five seconds and turning your screen from portrait to landscape or back easily takes half a minute. This extreme sluggishness is gone now.

     

    In the end I am happy and, with time, will forget about the anguish and the wasted hours trying to get iTunes to work.

     

    I'd like to give you more points but that seems impossible.

     

    And to answer your question: I live in a suburb of Tokyo named Koganei, about 30km (make that 20 miles) away from the Tokyo business center, a city of 100000 with lots of green.

     

    All the best,

     

    Bernd

  • by berndbausch,

    berndbausch berndbausch Sep 7, 2015 7:58 PM in response to elcpu
    Level 1 (1 points)
    Sep 7, 2015 7:58 PM in response to elcpu

    To talk some more or stay in touch, befriend me on LinkedIn. There is only one with my name in Japan.

  • by elcpu,

    elcpu elcpu Sep 7, 2015 8:14 PM in response to berndbausch
    Level 6 (16,265 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Sep 7, 2015 8:14 PM in response to berndbausch

    My pleasure, Bernd. The Restore should have brought back all the Apps, every one of them IF they were part of the backup, i.e, if you backed up after the Apps were installed. Obviously, any App you added after a backup would not have been part of that backup. So your expectations were not wrong, that is what has always happened to me with every Restore. If you did not get some Apps back, the only conclusion I can draw is that they were added after the backup was made (or possibly they were corrupted??). Photos on Camera Roll should also come back but not photos or albums you manually synced from your computer through iTunes since those are backed up on the computer already (easy to bring them back however). Don't know about iBooks, I have not lost any of mine. I would "bet" (just an expression since I am not a betting man) that if your backed up now and then restored from that backup you would get everything back. And by the way, indeed make a new backup now, that way if something goes wrong in the future you can at least get to the state you are in today.

     

    I am glad that you got rid of the worthless 17 GBs of Other (or most of it anyway). It will start growing again but not to that size I hope, more like 500 MBs or so. Likewise, I am glad that the sluggishness is gone so it seems that you were very successful in getting your iPad in good shape again.


    Finally I want to thank you for your kind words, they mean far more to me than any "silly" points. If you ever need help again do not hesitate to post.

     

    Cheers,

    Carlos

     

    p.s., since you mentioned "green", I also live away from the city center (30 miles north of Houston) in a place called The Woodlands for good reason, heavily forested and master planned to preserve the "green". A real delight but no cherry trees... mostly oaks and pines. A great place to hike, bike, etc. in a month or so when the weather cools down (now is swimming weather) - I will be doing far less forum work then...