New iphone 13 128gb "not enough space" to sync

The message is telling you that it needs 16.67GB in addition to the 31.38GB that is free, not simply 16.67GB of the 31.38GB. In other words, although there is 31.38GB of free space, you have asked for 48.05GB of media to be added to the phone.

The other thing to take into account is that once you see the message, if you then remove media from the phone (by unticking songs or videos), you then have to click the Sync button in order for the removal of those items to take place. You may have already done this, but I add it as a double-check.

Next: one CD, imported into your iTunes library at 320Kbps (which is good quality) should use up approximately 156MB of space, so nowhere near the the size of the space you currently have on your phone. Even at 1411Kbps in wav format, one album is probably only about 574MB.

It would appear then, that either you are trying to synchronise far more than you think to the phone or there is a lot of Other on it. So let's check.

Connect the phone to your iTunes Library and click on the device icon at the top of the iTunes window (when it appears). At the bottom of each pane (Summary, Music, etc.) look for - and make a note of, the Capacity Bar sizes listed:

On the screenshot above, the amount of Other is so small that you cannot see it. If you hover your mouse over any of the types shown in the Capacity Bar, (Audio, Video, Other, etc.) you will see how much space is being used. There will always be some Other listed, but if it's too large, that's an issue. Usually, a further Sync would reduce it.

If Other is not the problem, you will then have to consider what is being added (or what has been selected for adding to) your phone. For example, if you think that the Video section is too large, perhaps larger than you expect, that's where you should investigate further. What about Podcasts? Do you have any Podcasts synchronised with the phone, in particular, video Podcasts?

Video, in either Podcast form or in the films section, is the largest space hog, so that's what to check first.

londonswr123 wrote:

I really can't understand why the new phone would accept at least the same amount of data as the old phone when they have the same memory.

The one thing that will make a significant impact is the size of the Other. You need to check that and let us know how much Other has been allocated. Look on the Capacity Bar and let us know how much Other your phone is reporting. In the screenshot below, I hovered over each section (the coloured block in the bar) and the pop-up reported the actual memory being used for that section:

I personally think that 7GB is quite high. It's possible that your latest action has already reduced it significantly, which is why you're now able to put what you want on the phone. Further Syncs should hopefully reduce it even more. There will always be a small amount of Other, but I think 7GB is too much. It all takes up space that you want to use.

To move forward with this, I recommend that you Sync your phone with iTunes on a regular basis, perhaps once a week or every two weeks, even if you have no new music to add to it. Synchronising your device with iTunes will copy the latest play statistics from the phone to your iTunes Library and even if you don't make use of the Last Played field, iTunes does, so it helps if the phone is allowed to empty out that information back into your iTunes Library.

But in addition to that, changes to the rating of songs, made on your phone, are transferred back and any Smart Playlists are updated. (I have several Smart Playlists on my device, that use the Last Played information and as a consequence, that Playlist (on my device) is then updated. Plus of course, it gives iTunes a chance to reduce the amount of Other.

In case you're going to ask (I'm sure you're curious), Other is made up of files that your device can no longer read or use. There are many reasons why that might happen - don't spend too long wondering what they are (unless you're a computer geek), but a Sync gives iTunes the opportunity to get rid of as much of it as it can.