Level 1

53 points

Cannot transfer backup to a new iPhone 12 Pro. Not enough space error

Around 6 hours spent in vain. The backup for iPhone does not work. Apple is useless. Cannot make their software work!

My old phone is iPhone XS Max with 256 Gb. I've been deleting data to keep in under 128 GB (which my new iPhone 12 Pro has), then I lowered the bar to 110 GB, then to 100 GB, eventually to 80 GB. Each time I spent a lot of my time to find data to delete. Nothing worked! There is no way I can transfer my data to my new phone.

I spent much of my time repeating "transfer your data" from iPhone to the new iPhone process directly from the phone. Each time the same error after minutes of trying "not enough space to transfer data". Why not enough space if iPhone Storage usage shows 80 GB and the new iPhone has 128GB???

Funny part, then I called Apple. They advised backing up via the computer. Firstly, I couldn't find space on my Mac. It has 170 GB free, but complained "not enough space" to back up iPhone. Then I switched to PC with extra space. There I managed to create a backup which was roughly 170 GB!!! (while showing "using 80 GB on the device"). Of course, it didn't work for my new iPhone 12 Pro.

Then I decided to remove all Photos. My guess was that iCloud photo library might be the cause. Yes "Optimize storage" was selected, without it all my Photos would lots of space. I turned off iCloud and checked "remove photos from device". It seems that major number of photos remained on the phone. Actually, used space increased to 170 GB. All other checkboxes for Photos/iCloud didn't make any difference in terms of storage usage (General/iPhone Storage).

Called Apple again, they asked the same questions again and again. Finally, advised me to turn on iCloud for photos, wait till the sync finishes, then try backing up again. The process shows still 1% (after a couple of hours).

While waiting I tried to restore from the backup I created earlier today on the same old iPhone XS Max 256 GB. The backup didn't work for the same device!!! I cannot restore from a backup created from the same device! That's nonsense.

It is great, you, Apple, can make nice animations and art, even turn on nice music while waiting for the support specialist, but you totally useless with the real stuff, the software your devices use. It does not work.

The only option I have for now is to start the device as "new iPhone" which will add me some pain to set everything up. And, I will lose some data which is not in iCloud. request 101221201737

iPhone 12 Pro, iOS 14

Posted on Oct 28, 2020 6:52 AM

Top-ranking reply

Hickmo

Level 1

4 points

Posted on Feb 3, 2021 3:20 PM

I found a solution to this.

My scenario was moving from a 128GB to 64GB phone.

The old phone was using around 80GB of space so I used the optimise photos to offload the high res photos to iCloud.

The phone and iTunes both then showed the space used by photos reduced and the phone space used to around 50GB total.

So in theory the transfer should work. However both the direct phone to phone transfer and iTunes backup and restore both kept failing with out of space errors.

Also the iTunes backup file was still around 80GB.

I determined that the photos had not been offloaded to iCloud even though the space reports said it had.

Basically the photos only get offloaded if the iPhone starts running out of space. The space usage monitor is not accurate.

To force the phone to offload the photos you need to fill up the phone storage. I did this by downloading lots of moves on prime/Netflix etc. I filled up almost the whole phone.

once done I then deleted prime/Netflix to delete the apps and data.

Then I could transfer the phone to the new phone.

in summary the storage usage monitor is not accurate when optimised photos is enabled. The phone only offloads the high res photos if the photo starts running out of space.

This is really poor by apple. The space storage monitor is not accurate at all.

But I hope this helps other people as I wasted days of time trying various other things, until I realised the cause and solution.

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41 replies

MR.No0oR

Level 1

4 points

Mar 14, 2021 2:51 PM in response to .dalailama

Got the same issue here .. I got 470 GB on my laptop and couldn’t back up my iPhone 11 Pro Max which has only 377 GB on it .. then tried to do the direct transfer from iphone to iphone which has 512GB “more than enough for 377GB” but still the iphone also telling me no enough space.

here is a pic

May 6, 2021 2:51 PM in response to .dalailama

Oh my gosh! I know this was in October but I am having the same problem. My old phone is the iphone X (256gb) and my new phone is the Iphone 12 pro (128GB) and it won't allow me to do phone to phone transfer and the backup to my computer (which is what Apple advised me to do) didn't work either. Said not enough storage yet my phone says only using 44gb of the 128 and that is why Verizon said I didn't need to spend money on another 256GB phone. I wonder to this day if I should have got the 256gb and seen if would have worked. Curious what you ever did now that it's May 2021. I've been dealing with this since the weekend and it's now almost the weekend again. I'm so frustrated. Apple was trying to sign in to do the screen sharing and they couldn't even get that to work.

May 6, 2021 3:03 PM in response to checheV

Tried that...didn't work. I used the restore from icloud and it hasn't sent everything over. Nothing is working and it sounds like a common error. Somehow it worked for my friend and my husband and i'm not sure why?

kevlon12

Level 1

9 points

Jun 11, 2021 4:04 AM in response to .dalailama

I beat this..just make sure you have turned off icloud for photos, Icloud backup and icloud drive. After disbaling all these i was able to transfer directly data from Iphone x to Iphone 12 pro max smoothly.

JBCAKS

Level 1

4 points

Jul 20, 2021 9:16 PM in response to .dalailama

Transferred from 8 to 12. Only using 85 GB on old phone. After transferring to iPhone 12, it now says I am using 121 GB. my old phone only shows I am using 85 GB. and it kept saying not enough storage on phone to transfer. It took hours to get set up on new phone only to find out just by transferring the same exact data from one phone to the other, I somehow used an extra 30GB.

any solutions to why just by transferring 85GB to an iPhone 12 my usage increased almost 30GB???

Sep 1, 2021 11:22 AM in response to Hickmo

Thank you so much. If I had not seen your comment I would have been stumped. I had the same problem. My old phone had so much free space that I had to download tons of movies but it did the trick and I’m now happily on my new phone 😊

gege1804

Level 1

8 points

Sep 29, 2021 9:47 PM in response to .dalailama

thank you so much. I have been trying to transfer the data from my old phone for almost a good 4 hours until I stumbled onto your answer. Very helpful. Also very dissatisfied with apple for leaving such a bug. The phone is not cheap and to have to deal with this is beyond frustrating.

Ebwilson

Level 1

18 points

Nov 22, 2020 7:01 PM in response to .dalailama

Did you find a fix? Thank you!

pfl1124

Level 1

4 points

Nov 24, 2020 4:13 AM in response to Ebwilson

Same thing is happening to me. Tried restore from backup that was taken from iPhone 12 pro and still nothing. Photos get downloaded and fill up the device.

Nov 25, 2020 7:04 PM in response to Ebwilson

Same exact issue. Use 50mb of my xs max and cannot transfer to the new 12 124mb because “not enough space” 😡

chen-hen

Level 1

4 points

Nov 29, 2020 6:18 AM in response to .dalailama

try to restore new iPhone 12 from my iPhone 7 plus backup in computer, and keep showing not enough free space on your iPhone.

Dec 17, 2020 9:15 PM in response to checheV

Same problem.

Dec 31, 2020 11:30 AM in response to mark2036

TRIED DIRECT CABLE, IMAC ,MACBOOK PRO , all my computer have 1TB SSD cant able to load the back up.

DIRECT CABLE FROM QUICK START FAILED

THIS IS INSANE

red7lee

Level 1

4 points

Jan 5, 2021 2:36 PM in response to .dalailama

I have the same issue! My iPhone X has 80GB and My iPhone 12 has 128GB. but I keep getting Not enough space error.

So so disappointed.

RoyM28

Level 1

4 points

May 4, 2021 8:50 PM in response to SravanKrA

And stored on the phone too whereas it should free up space

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Cannot transfer backup to a new iPhone 12 Pro. Not enough space error