Ipad storage

Your overall system storage will fluctuate - as various system caches are refreshed through usage. The most accurate view of your current internal storage utilisation, by category, can be seen here:

Settings > General > iPad Storage

You should note that while relatively accurate, these figures are not realtime - but are calculated values that are themselves “refreshed” when triggered. System data can be expected to vary widely over time as the iPadOS system memory management moves Apps between states. System storage will be at its minimum immediately following a system restart - and will grow substantially as Apps are opened.

iOS/iPadOS Apps are generally in one of four states:

• The App is “Active” - it is running running in the foreground. When you switch tasks, the App will continue to run in active state for some minutes before its resources are released and is placed into an Inactive state.
• The App is “Inactive” but remains loaded in [fast] RAM. In this state, the App can be instantly restored to an Active state - but is not consuming CPU or other resources whilst in the inactive state.
• The App is “Inactive” and unloaded. In this state, the App has been completely offloaded (releasing RAM for use by other processes) but its running state has been saved to [slow] flash memory. Returning to an App in this state will cause the App’s saved state to be reloaded from flash memory into Active RAM - without the need to re-initialise the App.
• The App has been closed. All running data has been expelled - there is no “saved” state; relaunch will reload and re-initialise the App from scratch.

Memory management is generally a juggling act - and for the most part, you should allow the OS to automatically manage its memory space. Inactive Apps do consume some system resources, but by design, the required system resources to maintain this state are insignificant.