Apple Watch Series 3- Storage Issues

I've had problems with decreasing storage on my Series 3 since I bought it last October. In my case I'm convinced it's related to the Siri Voice I'm trying to use, British Female. In summary if I select either of the British Siri voices, Male or Female, the 0.5GB voice file will download when charging, then within minutes of finishing it will delete the file, reclaim most of the 0.5GB consumed storage, and then start downloading again. I've been on other discussion boards where people were seeing this behaviour with newer models of Watch, upto Series 6, but their issues seemed to have been fixed with WatchOS 7.2 whereas my Series 3 issues remain. Over time this repeated behaviour seems to make the available free space dwindle. However, if I select either of the American voices, Male or Female, the Siri voice file downloads and installs successfully. Although American Female is not my preferred Siri voice I've had it on now for a couple months or so and my free space is holding at about 2.5GB, and I've not had issues installing either of the 7.2 or 7.3 updates.

If you're a Series 3 owner on Watch OS 7 and are using British voices for Siri, could you please reply to this and let me know if you have successfully installed the voice? To do this on your Watch go to Settings, Siri, Siri Voice, and scroll right to the bottom. If you see a message underneath he Gender section, "Waiting to download. Download will occur when Watch is charging" it means the voice file is not installed. If there's no such message, the voice is installed correctly.

Ironically, whether it's installed or not, Siri will appear to work fine for most operations.

I have an Apple Watch Series 3, model A1859 and supposedly it has 8GB of storage. I would expect the actual formatted amount of ACTUAL storage to be less, Something in the hi 6GB to low 7GB range, but my CAPACITY is stated as 4.1 GIGABYTES. Obviously if I am starting from that point, with barely over half of my storage actually usable, I'm going to have problems. So, yes, I have been taken all photos, podcasts and music off of my watch, and now I've removed lot os apps, the ones I'm allowed to and I still can't install the latest Software Update.

For the longest time. I"ve done the repairing and reset, etc. but just now realized that the capacity I was dealing with was abnormally low. Could I just be dealing with defective storage? Is there a way I can reformat it and increase the amount of usable space? I'm very familar with doing this in the Mac w

orld but we're not given tools like Disk Utility for iOS and WatchOS.

That’s the same a my capacity and Everyoen else on this chat . Was on Watch OS 6 around 6GB capacity free been like this on OS 7x . Don’t know why unless the installs are saving snapshots of installed OS like mirrored copies. I have had to remove all stuff reboot the Watch and then install updates

I’m having the same problem and have been for months. I worked with AppleCare support for a while on it until the girl I was working with just stopped returning my emails. Last she had told me was that engineering is aware of this issue and is working towards a fix but no estimated timeline. It really is too bad because I loves my watch for everything from tracking sleep and workouts to my messages and music and now it’s basically a very expensive timex that just gives me the time and a message that says the storage is full

To all recent users who have posted in 2021,

An Watch Series 3 ONLY has a rated internal data storage capacity of 8 GBs.

After initial flash memory drive formatting this drops to 7.5 GBs.

watchOS is now over 4 GBs in size now. Leaving your Series 3 watches with between 3 amd 3.5 GBs of actual usable internal data storage space.

Also, you must leave some internal data storage space, in reserve at all times, to maintain normal and expected operation of watchOS.

Not sure of how much space for watchOS ( I know what it needs to be for iOS/iPadOS ), but not sure for watchOS.

Let's just say it is between 500 MBs to 1.0 GB of reserve watchOS space ( it is between 3-4 times more for iOS/iPadOS devices, so I am basing this amount on that figure for watchOS reserve storage ).

This leaves all of you with series 3 watches with only a practical, usable internal data storage space of only 1-2 GBs AND THAT IS IT!

This is hardly any space to store much of anything on an older series 3 Watch.

In contrast, the series 4 had 16 GBs of internal storage for a much more actual, usable data storage amount of 8-9 GBs.

The series 5, 6 and SE models all have 32 GBs of internal data storage for a much more flexible, actual, usable internal data storage amount of 22-23 GBs.

Your series 3 watch storage is being eaten up by the ever growing size of watchOS.

It is the same issues with users of current iOS/iPadOS compatible16 GBs iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch devices are having with the ever growing size of iOS/iPadOS.

These OSes are now taking up a significant chunk of the very low intenal data storage of these lowest cost, base model, older iOS/iPadOS devices, now.

32 GBs iPhones and iPads are quickly becoming the “new” 8 and 16 GBs devices, now, in 2021, and this situation is only going to get worse for these users of low internal data storage devices.

I'm having the same issue. Bought my Apple Watch 3 in September 2020 and the storage has always been a problem. Apple has refused to help at this point. They've opened ticket after ticket and have never resolved this. In March 2021 they took the watch in and then sent it back to me, claiming they were unable to duplicate the issue. Meanwhile I've sent them countless screenshots showing the clear discrepancy. Has anyone successfully sued Apple in the small claims court? I am considering filing a statement of claim now--$102 filing fee, which I would recover. I think the watch speaks for itself, in terms fo evidence. They essentially sold me a defective watch and have then spent the last 8 months doing nothing about it. Thoughts? Note for future: ALWAYS buy any Apple products at Costco. They have a 90-day returns policy!

For the past year at least I have to reset and erase all settings to update my watch every single time. I only have three additional apps than what comes with the watch. And Apple Support is never any help they replace the watch twice I keep telling them it has nothing to do with the watch. Now I’m out of warranty and it’s still happening

It’s obvious this has been going on for 2 years or more in fact major issues last year with on Watch 6x

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251380551

see this

same issue here after 2 days of restore it happened again and again

I think restarting is the way to go (hopefully just for now). I get over a gig of storage back just by rebooting.

Nope 1 day after the clean restare ( as a NEW watch) same problem

Hmm, mine was now sent in to Apple Support. I‘m curious what they will tell me. The Genius was telling me that they would either do a factory reset or replace the watch. I hope it will help somehow.

I have bought a new watch just for test but i had the same issue again. Right now with 6.2.8 seems fixed finger crossed

ok !!! let's wait 2/3 days and then let's spread the voice. It is quite incredible that apple engender does not solve it... we had to make a trial error test....