Reminders document and data

I've finally had some success. Reminders are now only syncing 76 mb to my Watch and Mac and iPhone.

Here's what I did. I'm not sure which parts matter and which don't:

• Deleted Reminders app from iPhone and turned off Reminders sync in iCloud settings on iPhone. I also turned off my iPhone and Watch during this process.
• In Reminders on Mac I then deleted every single list. There were some lists that were shared with me, and I deleted the original lists from the iPhone they were shared from (not my iPhone). I think this step is important. Note: I did not just un-join the lists that were shared with me, I deleted them from the iPhone they were created on
• I checked on icloud.com Reminders that there were no lists visible anymore to make sure they had really been deleted. Weirdly, not all of my lists were originally visible in the iCloud website. Interestingly, when I deleted one of the lists that had been shared with me, icloud.com gave me a lengthy error message and kicked me out Reminders.
• Then I quit Reminders on Mac and deleted the macOS Reminders folder (~/Library/Reminders). Then I relaunched the app and turned iCloud sync back on.
• Only 20~ish mb of data was downloaded to the MacOS reminders folder. At this point I recreated my lists from scratch, including sharing some
• Turned back on iPhone and Watch
• Unpaired Apple Watch and set it up from scratch. No Reminders data was synced across at all (a first)
• Turned back on iCloud Reminders sync on iPhone. Now Reminders only takes up about 70mb of data on iPhone, Watch and Mac.

I think the issue was related to one of the lists that was shared with me. Once it was deleted (not just un-joined) I think the problem was fixed.

Some things worth noting:

• icloud.com was only displaying a couple of my Reminders lists, possibly indicative of a problem. Now it shows all of them
• I had to unpair and set up the watch again to get the Reminders space back on the watch
• I had to delete the ~/Library/Reminders folder manually on Mac to get the space back on the Mac, it didn't reclaim it on its own

I finally solved this! At least for me. My phone and iPad both had over 14 GB being used. The problem was traced to the Reminders in my library on my mac. I had once attached a picture with a reminder of my eyedrops. Somehow it kept replicating itself until there were hundreds (700 +) copies of the attachment at about 16 mb each. Deleted them disconnected from icloud. Deleted reminders app from Phone and ipad. Shut down all devices. Waited 10 minutes and fixed! From this webpage https://appletoolbox.com/fix-apple-watch-says-storage-is-full-but-its-not/

1. On your Mac, open the Reminders App database. It should be located under Mac\UserName\Library folder\Reminders.

Having done the above. Then after deleting all backups of iOS devices and resetting said devices. I deleted all backups on iCloud and my Mac always contained the extra 14gigs. No problems now (except pain of setting up iOS devices from scratch of course). I had decided to delete the files from the backups themselvesI found them and deleted them. But I could not successfully restore my device from that backup.

Update:

Someone from Apple Support at a higher level called me back and we had a talk for about an hour.

I gave him screen access and showed him the SQL Database with the old entries and the Reminders App where those entries can't be found anymore, even under "completed".

Btw. The database contains almost 150.000 lines which also explains that the Reminders App notifications sometimes needs 10 seconds to react when checking a reminder at the lock screen. Most of these lines are empty.

We made a screen recording and some screenshots which i then uploaded to Apple.

He said that he is going to write a report and along with my screenshots and the recording the case will be forwarded to Apple's software engineers in Cupertino.

Let's all hope for the best!

It seems to be a bug with memory handling. In my case Apple senior adviser was only interested of how my iPhone has this close to 3GB Reminders app data, how its not possible to delete it even looks like there’s nothing on my Reminders as lists or items and nothing Reminders related on iCloud neither (at least to see on any device). I like some others have found strange correlation with mac Reminders data size and iOS device memory block after latest big iOS update. So messages and feedback to Apple directly is the only solution to get a solution until now. Or possibly start with all devices affected from scratch.

If you have iCloud turned on for reminders it will not empty what is in iCloud by deleting the app.

If you turn off Reminders in Settings, Your name, iCloud, then agree to delete from the phone, does the storage in Settings, General, iPhone storage disappear?

If it does then the large amount of Reminders data is in iCloud.

That hollow icon shows the deletion was incomplete.

If a forced restart doesn't remove it you are looking at restoring the phone.

forced restart

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/iphone/iph8903c3ee6/ios

Backup and restore (using the computer method preferably)

(1)How to back up your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch – Apple Support

Unlock your SIM PIN if it has one

(2) Restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod to factory settings – Apple Support

(3) Restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch from a backup

If you really only have one reminder, I would delete the reminder, Delete the Reminders app, restart the phone, reinstall the app fro App. Store then add the one reminder back.

I also have this issue and did a little bit of research.

On my Mac i searched the folder /Users/USERNAME/Library/Reminders/Container_v1/Stores/

and found a sqlite File which had the same size as it is being displayed in the storage settings on iOS.

So i made a copy of this file and downloaded a simple sqlite viewer and browsed through that database.

And what i found was tons of old reminders that i deleted years ago.

Of course i checked in iOS if there were any of those reminders under "completed reminders" but i deleted them also years ago.

So this means this is definitely an error.

The reminders app is deleting the entries just visually. The database still contains all of your reminders you have ever created, even those you have deleted in "completed reminders."

Apple needs to fix that immediately or the storage will grow on and on.

You can try to workaround this issue if you know how to edit an sqlite file and delete the entries manually and then hope for iCloud to sync the edited file to your devices.

But be aware not to break you database. Always backup your files.

If you turn off iCloud Reminders sync in iCloud settings on your phone, does the 64.4gb of used storage change at all? I found the used storage decreased when I turned it off and increased again when I turned it on.

Logically the data must be in iCloud. If you turn off Reminders in Settings, Your name, iCloud, opt to remove from the iphone, and the data goes away then that proves the data is in iCloud Reminders. There should be nowhere near that amount of data in Reminders.

I appreciate you are not the original poster and you gave no detail, but if you have many GB's of data in iCloud Reminders I have no idea how to clear it apart from deleting all reminder entries.

I think Apple are beginning to take this issue seriously and I would encourage everyone to ring Support about this.

I had two long phone calls with Support, they weren’t’ able to solve the problem but both said they had not come across the issue before and that they would accelerate it to the coding guys.

I referred them to this thread and others, they did look but said it doesn’t matter how active the issue is here we MUST talk to support as no action is taken on what appears here!!!

Today is February 11 2022 and still no solution. I bought an iWatch in December and for months have been working with apple to find out why the storage is full after deleting all reminders (included completed for more than a year). Because of my insistence to keep calling they agreed to replace my iWatch so I could get one with "factory setting". This because the whole time it was assumed that the iWatch data, once taken up could never be removed. I was so happy when I received my new watch and synced it without getting "Storage is almost full" message. Well after only 2 days guess what? I got the message again!!! Imagine!

Then I found this great discussion which has truly enlightened me. It is so sad that after speaking with so many Apple advisers, none seems to have a clue of this situation.

Well the good news is that after the recommendations to delete the Reminders app from my iPhone (7.8GB of data), although it doesn't actually remove the data, I then proceded to unsync the watch and start over. I even chose to restore the last backup. I have gone back to Storage about 5 times and all is fine because it actually has removed the Reminders app!!! I can live without the Reminders app. I'll just have to find a new one until apple actually fixes this issue. I really don't understand the complexity of this issue that hasn't been resolved by Apple.

Well, at least for anyone with this problem with their iWatch, it should be able to resolve the situation. I keep checking as I think at sometime the 7+GB will show up again.

GentleBen82, you are mostly right. I did realize too that my mac had that reminders container library exactly same 1,2gb that my ipad had and has. Deleting that whole content brought it back. Then, studying this case days and days, understood that icloud reminders had something strange legacy. Setting my icloud account on a clean iphone brought 40MB reminders data to phone even under icloud nothing to see neither any done or undone reminders or lists. Then after creating one other day a complete new apple id, setting it to clean iphone, reminders asked if to update the reminders app. Then with other id created reminders with photos attached I got finally reminders visible under icloud account, deleting reminders from icloud on iphone, got that same phenomena happen on old apple id. Reminders asked if to update content (like with ios 13). Then heading to mac, where deleting that user reminders container always brought back some years old attachments when setting reminders icloud on. Now with such dummy reminder with enough photos attached (then reminders data visible under icloud), leaving possibly reminders setting on by icloud setting, deleteing icloud reminders, turning on reminders finally on mac came the same question, update reminders, yes. That finally flushed that icloud reminders, which possibly corrupted by stupid ios13/catalina reminders update. Now mac doesent generate any strange old attachments under reminders container, neither old apple id set up on clean iphone generate some 40mb data to iphone. So I am happy to feel I managed to clean my icloud account with reminders, at least I believe so. The reminders works now much faster when turning it on as it took a minute before (see this issue too by many). Still, this doesnt make any differnce to any ios device or watch that now it would be possible to delete iphone 2,9gb data, ipad 1,2gb data nor watch 2,8gb reminders data. Reminders app can be deleted but not the data. I highly suppose that apple knows the whole mess with unupdated reminders databases, which uploaded at some update to icloud and at some update ios devices ”downloaded” this (even no reminders to see) reserving memory on multiple devices. Still, I didnt start clean install of all devices. First as I felt it crazy job and if with corrupted icloud data, the same could happen again. Second I feel like if I bring my car to service and after service it has 20% less cargo space or consume 20% more fuel, with a service company remaining silent, I would feel betrayed write totally other letters with my legal advisor. Anyhow, like said before, this apple ecosystem cant be this complex at least to end users, or making their devices useless.

Sorry for the straight put ’what I did description’ but nice to see GentleBen82 is on the right track in my opinion and that im ****** with this mess apple has created with no reponse (all logs etc uploaded by senior advisor) since months ago.

I've just come across this issue because my Apple Watch has run out of storage because of several gigs of reminders. I deleted all old reminders but the storage was not freed on Mac, iOS or Watch.

Having a look at ~/Library/Reminders/Container_v1/Files/Account-xxx on my Mac, I can see it's made up of many copies of image files which were attached to daily repeating reminders. One copy for every single reminder. You would think Apple would have designed the app smart enough to re-use the one image, but apparently not.

I can delete the 10 gig folder on my Mac, but this does nothing to free up the space on my iPhone. This is automatically synced to the watch, no matter what I do. Even deleting the Reminders app from iPhone will not stop the syncing of this 10 GB of data to the watch.

Has anyone had any success with any workarounds? So far I've tried:

• Wipe the iPhone and set up as a new phone. The Reminders data reappeared, so it must be syncing over iCloud, despite the fact iCloud claims Reminders is not taking up anywhere near this amount of space
• Log out of iCloud and delete Reminders on Mac, iPhone and unpair Watch. Then wait, turn them back on, and re-log in to iCloud. This just caused the 10gb folder on my Mac to re-download.

I read that some people were looking at editing the sqlite database. Has anyone had any luck with this? I may try truncating the data in the file.

There is a bug in iOS15 where some people on 128 GB show say 200GB available. I would not trust the iPhone/pad reporting.

It is why I suggested using a browser to see how many GB there actually are in iCloud itself.