iOS 17 Storage Space Bug / Issue

The 17.1.2 update didn’t help, but I am seconding the restore comment.

Back up your phone, wipe it, then restore it from that backup. Since I’m a Windows computer user and I don’t use iCloud, I backed up my phone via iTunes. I then did a factory reset of my phone (make sure to keep your eSim/carrier data, it will give you that option before you completely erase it), then backed it up from the backup I created. You should also be able to create a backup from iCloud if you don’t have iTunes. It’s been around half a day and it LOOKS like everything is normal so far. One of my apps shrank from 1.4gb to 417mb, and the Documents & Data size now looks reasonable. Previously, simply deleting apps did nothing to change the size of Documents & Data.

It took a few hours and time will tell if is bloats back to its bigger size, but it’s worth a shot. Just be very careful when backing up and erasing your phone.

The same problem, and have seen it now on countless other iPhones. If you select "Music" in the iPhone Storage breakdown, the Synced content value is exactly the same storage value as the actual downloaded music data size. They are duplicating the music storage space twice. I think it is just a reporting bug, as it reports correctly within the "About" menu in General....thought they would have corrected this in 17.0.1, but they didn't!!!

17.0.3 fixed the issue for me. Now synced content is the music uploaded via my pc and the music app is 229mb. But still i have the issue with phone app getting bigger and bigger now at 2.2gb and i dont have a posters or voicemail or anything in it except 300 contacts.

Updating to iOS 17.2 worked for me. 10gb of system data disappeared. The big problem was a WhatsApp backup (I don't know why it was accumulated in system data). All I had to do was delete this icloud backup, and all the space occupied in system data became available again.

Have the exact same problem too. I have always manually synced my music library with my Mac, and since iOS 17 (and indeed, still on iOS 17.0.1), "Synced content" has appeared, and is the same size as my "Music" data, i.e. duplicated.

Phoned Apple support, escalated to tier 2, screenshots etc. and was ultimately advised that it's a known issue being investigated 🤷🏼‍♂️

The same .... except I followed the help desk advice .. and now my phone is essentially bricked.

64GB iPhone Xs.

Prior to Upgrade:

iOS ~9GB.

System Data ~1GB

Music ~ 14GB (Subset synced from Mac)

Free ~4GB

I was asked to free up another 6GB to complete the download which I did (Maps, Videos, Apps and Podcasts).

Post Upgrade:

Synced Content 10.8GB

iOS ~9GB.

System Data ~1GB

Music ~ 14GB (Subset synced from Mac)

Free ~0GB

Basically it had robbed me of 10GB of data.

I raised a call with Apple last Thursday. Was told to wait and he would call me back today with advice from Dev Team.

Advice was to do a fresh backup to my Mac ... totally erase the phone to factory settings, and restore from the backup. I was skeptical but I did it. (removed my music in order to be able to do the backup).

NO NOT IN ANY CIRUMSTANCES DO THIS.

Post Restore:

Phone is full

Synced Content now 24GB

iOS 10GB

System Data 8GB

iMessages has doubled in size.

I had the same problem on my gen 8 ipad. Had 31.98 of memory used and 5.21 available. I backed it up, restored the ipad to factory (received error message that there was a problem, but the restore continued and worked), and then restored the back up. After doing this, I was using 14.57 and had 17.43 available. Problem solved.

Clearly, I should not have had to do this, and hopefully Apple fixes the bug(s).

iOS17 right though to 17.2.1 will count past purchases (even if deleted) towards your storage.

Strange? yes iOS 16 did not do this.

I've been on the phone for 8 hours with apple and they have confirmed this now. for me this is happening in Books.

years worth of deleted books are not in the library but confirmed to be now counting towards the phone storage.

You can't remove this. There is no remedy.

If you sign out of your Apple ID. it will remain.

If you delete the app and sign out of your Apple ID then reinstall the problem app you will see all the bloated data will remain.

17.0.3 appears to have fixed my duplicated storage issue with SYNCED CONTENT & iTunes based music. I'm now back to where is was with available strage with iOS16.

My iPhone 14 Pro running iOS 16.6.1 was using 55.7GB of the 256GB available. When I went to buy my iPhone 15 Pro, I thought "oh I only need a 128GB 15 Pro" and just migrated. I got a warning that I was running low on space, and I was using 108GB of 128GB on the new 15 Pro. Apple's Podcasts was taking up 20GB so I was able to delete that and get down to 88GB used out of 128GB. What is also weird is the podcast app I use (Overcast) does not appear in the iPhone Storage screen on the old phone, and yet is the largest app at over 6GB. So I called Apple support and escalated to a supervisor who was able to screen share both phones simultaneously. He said there might be an issue with Apple's own apps reporting the wrong info, so he had me delete Apple Music and Apple Podcasts to see if that helped (I don't use either). It did not do anything. He then made me delete everything on the iPhone 15 Pro and reinstall from iCloud backup. After that, I was only using 75GB, but discovered my photos hadn't loaded. Once I started that sync, I could see my storage growing. I suspect it will end up in the 85-90GB range, as it had previously. I have now wasted 3 more hours on this whole upgrade saga, and will call Apple again after all of the photos/videos load (optimized) to try again. I worry the next step is to completely wipe the OS and start over. This might be the worst iPhone upgrade process of the 14 or 15 I've been through.

SYNCED CONTENT - Can i just confirm. This thread is all about a very repeatable problem whereby we're losing storage because Apple are duplicating the SYNCED CONTENT with anything that is synced to the phone (most notible music, via iTunes) So as an example settings/general/iphone storage/music/all songs is duplicated with Settings/general/iphone storage/SYNCED CONTENT and the storage available does not match when you compare the settings/about/available with settings/general/iphone storage. They report two different values!! Still not fixed in 17.0.2

those who are still having storage issues, can you upgrade to 17.1.1 it seemed to resolved the issue with storage on my iPhone 12. Mind you it was a forced upgrade for me, but the issue is resolved for now.

So the latest patch 17.1.1 worked for me, I am on an iPhone 12 though so not sure if that makes a difference. I am no longer getting the storage space issue.

Hello, i had a call from apple support and they advised me to do the same. Reset the phone and restore from backup. Issues are now solved.