Storage category not showing

I had this issue as well. I went through the whole Apple technical service chain all the way to the point of syncing with a Mac and sending log files to a Senior tech. Long story short it will resolve itself. Give it a week. I did the same restore file on 2 exact same spec iphone 12 minis and it showed the category separation on one and (grey bar) not the other. I think you just need to let it do its thing for a while. Reboots, resets, restores will not fix this; it just needs time.

Im gonna comment here again because i feel like people are not understanding what is going on. You got a new phone or ipad and you just did a restore and all of a sudden settings>general>Iphone storage is not breaking down category sizes into colors and instead you are getting just a grey bar.

Well I hate to break it to you but you are going to need to wait till your phone does its thing such as download all your photo images and then optimize each one for iphone storage and various other things that happen in the background after setting up a new phone and/or doing a restore. When all that stuff is done you will look in the same section settings>general>iphone storage and realize your phone was never broken but rather it needed time to optimize and calculate category spaces so you get hour colorized category space breakdown.

It wont matter if you reset your phone or restore it or switch settings on and off and delete apps because the only thing that fixes this non-issue is that you wait till the phone has completed all of its background operations and processes.

This worked like a charm! Thank you!

Although I took the more annoying route.

here is my step by step solution based off the fixes iv seen: for phones and iPads

1. First if you have deleted the short cuts app, redownload it from the apple store
2. create a backup of your device with the short cuts app now on your device on to iCloud (go to settings and create a backup in the iCloud section)
3. Factory reset or DFU reset your device
4. set up the device as normal, put in the normal stuff (remember to have a recovery method for your Apple ID before you do this. Check your password and security in settings and make sure you have a phone number connected to it, this is super important for singing into your Apple ID to get the backup)
5. Then restore from iCloud and since you now had your short cut app due to backing it up with it before the restore. Wait for everything to come back on your device from choosing the backup
6. it should be fixed! But do NOT delete the shortcuts app after this.

This problem seems to be derived from a particular stock app being deleted after doing a factory reset/software update or DFU restore. Hopefully with this general guidance you guys can fix the problem

I hope this helps from someone who was having the same problem :)

I did it as factory reset and restore. I backed up my comple iphone on icloud including my wallpaper and I restored everything including wallpaper and applications while setting it up again and *also storage category started working, please note just keep shortcuts safe*.

Another hack if you are facing some issue, first download shortcuts from App Store (if it is deleted) and then reset your phone to factory settings and restore your phone iCloud back up while setting it up and enjoy.

Zarontavern wrote:

I’m currently running iOS 14.4 on my iPhone 12

That’s only the answer to my first question.

How about the other questions:

«Do you see any of the storage categories with some “spinning wheels” on those that have yet to be determined?

It can take some time for the system to determine the sizes of the various storage categories.

Did you see Quizil’s comment (to me) about what finally fixed this? [for him/her.])

Omer Bila wrote:

I had this issue as well. … Long story short it will resolve itself. Give it a week. I did the same restore file on 2 exact same spec iphone 12 minis and it showed the category separation on one and (grey bar) not the other. I think you just need to let it do its thing for a while. Reboots, resets, restores will not fix this; it just needs time.

That is certainly possible.

Even after years, with my iPad Pro (2nd gen.), with nearly all iPadOS versions (including 14.4, now), I see times when it can take some time for the Storage Categories to show, and, even when they show almost immediately, they can change, with additional time.

Did you factory reset and set up as new or factory reset and restore? When I set up as new it fixed the greybar issue for me. When I restored from a backup it had the grey bar issue and time resolved it.

Hi there, restarting will not do anything and resetting too i believe, i don't remember xD

The issue that triggers this behavior at least in my case is that after deleting shortcut app storage bar goes to grey and after restoring from itunes everything is fine until i delete the app, been there several times i know this trust me lol

**on a serious note make a backup and try restoring. cheers!**

Welcome, Nickarora, to Apple Support Communities!

You may want to check out Omer Bila‘s comment at https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251906858?answerId=254655366022#254655366022

Hey everybody, a quick and short update, my issue is fixed after factory resetting my iphone and yes please don’t uninstall shortcuts after resetting your Iphone. Enjoy.

Welcome, Zarontavern, to Apple Support Communities!

As asked of others, what version of iOS are you running?

Do you see any of the storage categories with some “spinning wheels” on those that have yet to be determined?

It can take some time for the system to determine the sizes of the various storage categories.

Did you see Quizil’s comment (to me) about what finally fixed this?

Nickarora wrote:

Thankyou for your response Halliday, surely I will wait for a week or so to see if it gets fixed and will update accordingly.

Sounds good.

I certainly don’t know, with any certainty, that such will solve the issue.

However, as I wrote to Omer Bila: «Even after years, with my iPad Pro (2nd gen.), with nearly all iPadOS versions (including 14.4, now), I see times when it can take some time for the Storage Categories to show, and, even when they show almost immediately, they can change, with additional time.»

Ive had this issue on two iphone 12 minis, an iPad Pro, an ipad Mini, and an IPhone SE. After many hours of senior level tech support with Apple the only way it resolved itself for me was time. I suspect when one delete apps (especially apple native ones like shortcuts) perhaps it get stuck in some sort of always trying to calculate storage loop/bug; that being said if yours did not resolve itself in months there must be a clearly identifiable bug.

Welcome, anmol198, to Apple Support Communities!

Please see the comment just above yours, at https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251906858?answerId=254648202022#254648202022.

Hey, so I’m having the same problem with my 5th generation iPad.

I have DFU reset it and restarted it from new like the apple support service told me to, but no luck.

Do you think it’s a bug with the iCloud messages?

I want to go through the same steps as you did with my iPad but I don’t know if I have to disable iCloud messages or enable them.