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

I have the same problem with the iPhone 12max. My XR transferred my pic and would sync I am having real orobkems getting this new phone to auto sync with new pics. I use my phone and surf pro in my work Since this new phone is soo expensive I need a fix. The max does not come with a lightening cable which is really insulting since the phone is soo costly.

Is not having the newest cable part of the problem?

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

So I was having the same issue with an XS with 256gb capacity but only 75gb being used. Tried for a couple hours to get the new 12 pro max with 128gb capacity to restore from a back up. Tried iCloud, direct phone to phone and restoring from hard backup on my MacBook Pro. Nothing worked. Then I even deleted more data from the Xs knocking it down to only 55gb, rebacking it up on iCloud and trying that. Still nothing. I had backed the Xs up the night before(when 75gb was still being utilized), so as a last ditch effort I tried to restore the new 128gb 12 pro max from that back up and for some reason it worked. No clue, reason or indication why but it worked.

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.

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?

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???

I HAVE THE ANSWER

turn off photos backup on icloud (if they are backed up, they are already in the cloud and will be there for your new phone as well, if they are only on your old iphone, they'll transfer now)

It took me two days, so many attempts. but that did the trick

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 😊

This worked for me as well. I tried an iPhone 7 to iPhone 7 transfer, both with 128GB, and kept getting the "not enough storage" message, even though the original phone was using only 108 GB. After I disabled iCloud Photos and iCloud Drive it allowed me to start the transfer. Now it says time remaining 9 hours so it's going to take all night to complete the transfer.

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.

Did you find a fix? Thank you!

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.

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

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

Same problem.