iPad Files app loading very slowly

I had the same problem. When loading the Files app, the spinner go around up to a minute. I started a process of elimination. I put all my random files in the folders to clear things up and be tidy. That’s when I noticed it. I had a large newsletter in PDF format. First, I tried to open it and that’s when it really got stubborn and that spinner locked up the computer. I had to reboot it and make a second attempt to delete that PDF file. After reboot, I deleted the file and everything worked fine, just so quick, so fast, you can’t believe it. If it were me, I would get rid of every single PDF file or at least the large ones and things should go back to normal soon. By the way, my storage is less than half out of 512 gig and I have a iPad Pro. The CPU has plenty of room to maneuver and swamp files. Yep, those PDFs are dangerous, I got rid of them. My Files app is lightning fast and instantaneous loads.

Update: Since I suspected some sort of broken file to cause the problem and I was in no mood to reset my iPad today, I started deleting all files I no longer need on my iPad. It also seemed to me as if the long loading scenarios were even worse in my Downloads folder compared to other folders which was why I started deleting there. I also uninstalled almost all of my custom font configuration profiles. Since then everything works as smooth as before! :)

I had the same problem, for months. I have hundreds of pdf files on my iPad and it would sometimes take several minutes to access a subdirectory and get one opened. I just deleted the Adobe Acrobat app and have been accessing directories and files, including my pdf's, very quickly ever since. I may have created another problem by deleting the app, but I'll worry about that later.

Iphone 15 pro 17.5.1

Files app started loading slow when I did a change on the Files icloud folder

Since then loading for on my iphone file documents gets worse. Loading takes more and more

Especially the folder I changed on icloud loads slower on the Files on my iphone folder

I deleted and reinstalled files app (did not lose any file) it gets better but not as fast as before.

This situation is awful.

I hope somebody will come soon with a solution

Ipad Pro 12.9” 6th gen user here.

This happened to me earlier this year. While I had to wait for the files system to recover and return back to normal, I found rebooting the system and letting the iPad rest for a bit to be the best solution. I haven’t encountered the problem since then. It is possible that using too much RAM somehow caused this situation.

The same thing has happened to me on my iPhone. Anything on the "on my iPhone" in the files app takes multiple minutes to open, including files, folders, etc. I have Plenty of empty storage space too. I agree that this seems to be an IOS 17.4 issue.

It’s happening the same to me. In my case I recently got my device and restored my data from an iCloud backup on iOS 17.5.1. It is surprising how new the device is and how slow loading the local files on the Files app.

Same VERY ANNOYING problem here.

I’m a graphic and visual artist, and when I need to access and export import images / files from an app to another, I sometimes have to wait that the files app comes « back to file » and let me access to my files again.

I suspect the problem to come from two main points : Icloud updates/ transfers that seems to slow down the app until the transfer is done.

it also seems that the « recent » folder on the files left bar can be one of the reason of the app slowing down. It’s one of those « apple » thing that INFURIATES me at times ! Why can’t you just remove, hide or clean up that folder that I DON’T NEED at all, that displays HUNDREDS of files that I could find other ways and that seems to slow down significantly my device ??!!

I have some kind of hopes that it will be fixed through IOS 18 updates, but those hopes are quite small, tbh

Same problem! When I select the ‘on my ipad’ folder, it takes more than 10 minutes to load. But if I select other folders such as google drive or icloud drive, they works fine!

Looks like ios 17 issues. This is infuriating since this problem render my ‘on my ipad’ folder in files app unusable!

Googled but no answer for now.

Apple pls fix this problem fast!

For me the same ! It clearly isn’t related to the storage that is left as I still have over 400 GB space left. Is there maybe a relationship between the kind of files that are in our storage ? Doc files xml etc?

I am having this problem as well. I am kind of aggravated that no one has responded to this thread. This basically just started from what I can tell with the most recent update of ipad os 17.4.1... on my 12.9" Ipad Pro M1...

It's been happening to me too. I copy and paste a lot of files around, usually around 1mb PDF's and it takes sometimes 5-10min to up to an hour to load the PDF. I've also dealt with losing files for seemingly no reason. Unacceptable since I use the iPad for work.

Hello,

Did you find a solution to this problem. I really cannot work smoothly and it is very annoying to wait for even a minute sometimes. please let me know if anything worked for you.

Thank you.

Agreed, I've had a similar issue as of 17.4

Not only that, the whole app crashes on M2 version while loading large PDFs…