Why is 1TB of storage being used for health app?

not only did I have an with the 1.6tb of health data, I also didn’t have a current back up on my Apple Watch to back up new one too. Turned off health data, did a back up, turned it back on n did a back up. Restored content/settings. Cleared the health data storage and was able to pair my new Apple Watch with current data. Job done!

I have already responded in this thread several days ago, but I have an update for my own particular instance of this problem.

First of all, to review the environment I am working with:

I have an iPhone 11 Pro (non-Max) 512GB, with about 272GB taken up and about 240GB free. The Health app reports 1.61TB used up. I typically do iTunes backups to a Windows 10 based Dell Laptop, which has a 1TB SSD and a 2TB HDD... I do my backups to the HDD, which has about 1.2TB free. Prior to the release of iOS 14 I had been able to run backups; since the 14 upgrade, iTunes fills up my hard drive completely, then crashes and dies without finishing successfully.

I finally reached out to Apple Support on this. IT IS A KNOWN PROBLEM for which they have NO SOLUTION AT THIS TIME. They do, however, offer a few workarounds. While I list them here, understand that you are getting them second-hand from me, plus your getting my opinion on their viability... reach out to Apple yourself if you need clarification, and understand that whatever you do with your hardware and information, that's at your own risk - don't blame me if it goes south on you.

With that out of the way, these are solutions that were suggested to me:

1. Wipe and restart your phone from scratch. (The "well, that IS an option" option, which I immediately set aside.)
2. Wipe your health data and restore from a backup, if you have one. (Another option I reject. As a heart patient, I actually bought my first watch, a Series 2, on my doctor's advice.)
3. Try an iCloud backup. (Riiiggght, if iTunes is going to try and write 2+ TB on my HDD, won't it do the same thing on iCloud? I have a 50GB account, not 2TB.)

Which brings me to a question Apple could not answer: since my iPhone only has 240GB free, yet at the same time Health is erroneously reporting 6.5x that space required, a physical impossibility, yet it blows out my entire 1.2TB of free HDD space, just what in the **** is it actually writing?!

Finally, they offered an alternative that's still not a great one, but seems the most viable one I could take from my standpoint:

4. buy or borrow an external HDD (e.g. 4TB) and try doing a backup to that.

That's what I am going to try... and see what happens. But it is going to take a LOOONNNG time to prove or disprove this out, even as a workaround... because when I tried doing iTunes backups to my laptop, it would take nearly 10 HOURS (on an Intel i7 laptop with 32GB) before failing due to lack of space. Using a portable drive, I would expect it to easily take more than 12 hours to run.

This will take me a few days before I try this out, so please bear with me. Thanks.

Apple are fully aware of the issues, in case no one has seen this on the Apple support website I thought I’d attach it for you to see

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211865

I called apple yesterday as was trying to pair my new Apple Watch, restored from a back up, the 1tb of health data storage has gone. Still a fews issues, but they resolved it, no more 1tb of health data. Havent lost any data! Schedule a call with them, really helpful.

Updating to iOS 14.2 fixes it.

Hi, just got off with Apple Support. Was told to backup and factory reset, and that it would fix it. Big hassle, so I think its worth it to just wait for the next update... They have received several reports.

I think the only solution to this is for as many people to report it to Apple support that way the more people they get to raise the issue the better the chance of doing an update.

I did read though this week in an IT article that Apple are fully aware of this issue along with a string of other issues such as phones overheating and battery draining etc and that an update will be out soon to sort it

Update 10/14: 1.61TB of Health data still gone after following the backup and restore process from Shawy's link. It's siting at a more realistic 797MB now.

Going to re-pair the Apple Watch tomorrow and see if things stay the same.

Hi User_782,

My guess would be that Apple feel they have fixed the issue now, as some of us have been able to get our Health App back to normal by reinstalling - I know this doesn't necessarily help you if you're unable to back-up your phone, however, I can tell you what I did just in case it helps.

There was a post a while ago on this thread that suggested removing the encryption of the back-up which means the Health App isn't included, this should allow you to back-up your phone to either your PC or Mac. You can then do a manual back-up of WhatsApp (something I didn't do which is why I lost some data). In theory, if you're issue is like mine, you can then unpair your Watch (which should back it up to the phone) then back up to your Mac/PC and then erase everything (which is the scary part). When you reinstall from a previous back-up, you should find that the Health issue is fixed and that everything has been saved. I didn't lose any Health Data, which I found surprising as that wasn't included in my back-up to my Mac.

I obviously cannot guarantee that this will work for you, and I'd always advise phoning the support team and get someone (who isn't on first line) to guide you through this. I hope it works for you, as it did for me, as I feel your pain on this issue. Again, I might be wrong, but I cannot see Apple releasing an update that will correct this as they have a solution in place now (not that it's an ideal solution).

If you try it, then good luck mate.

It is definitely fixed now. Erase. Restore from backup. No problems now. No more draining the battery or hogging the storage. Strange that the Apple folks don’t offer this solution.

So I ended up just restoring from iCloud backup and it seems the issue has been resolved

The iOS 14.2 GM update has fixed the problem!

iOS 14.2 update fixes it!

UPDATE: Im afraid it didnt work for me either in the end.

I have ended up going extreme and starting from scratch - restoring both watch and phone to factory settings and setting up as new. Not ideal at all as lost messages, activity data etc.

But has ultimately fixed the problem.

jonilstone wrote:

It is definitely fixed now. Erase. Restore from backup. No problems now. No more draining the battery or hogging the storage. Strange that the Apple folks don’t offer this solution.

It would be helpful if you read the rest of the thread. Some people couldn’t back up because of the large health data. And some of those didn’t have previous backups to restore. That’s why this is not a universal solution. Apple’s advice was NOT to erase and restore, because that would result id loss of the health and activity data, but rather to wait for a fix. That’s why Apple didn’t offer this solution.