reclaiming disk space after restore / backups on iphone

This issue never resolved by Apple ? I have Dell laptop runs on Window 8 and runs into this problem. I was backing up iPhone 6 plus (64G) and tried to restore to new iPhone 7 that I just got. Luckily, I found this forum.

Deleting folders free up a lot of diskspace (128GB). These are from multiple fails to restore attempts.

C:\Users\xmen\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup\*

I'm not sure how you can say that iTunes only permits one backup when 4 are currently listed in her iTunes. The problem may arise out of the complicated issue of not fixing phones, but selling refurbs on top of insurance already paid. Each phone creates a new...what is it? UDID? That being said, it becomes very confusing for me to figure out which folders should be (manually) deleted with a clear conscience. It's also disappointing that after deleting questionable backups within iTunes (under the preferences/devices tab you mentioned), that iTunes did nothing to the overall size of the backup directory. We deleted 3 backups through iTunes a few days ago and the overall folder size remained at 65GB. I do not want her to lose any important backup data from either of the 2 phones she is currently using, but it seems that I must manually remove folders from that directory through Windows ~ which is why I'm searching, so far unsuccessfully, for help in these forums. If iTunes had warned of insufficient disk space, when she had tried to restore after getting a refurbed phone, at least one of these folders probably wouldn't exist.

I am also of the opinion that any of the 4 backups listed in iTunes are viable. Why did you claim that only the newest is usable? If they match her iOS, for each phone and it's respective backup, I don't see why they wouldn't work.

Even then, it's still a matter of 2 different phones on 2 different versions of iOS. I need specific information about files that identify if the folder is incomplete or unusable. Something, for example, like a missing info.plist file meaning that the folder is useless.

Also, whatever is an "incremental backup"?

and thank you for responding...no one will respond to the query I initiated

Alright, now that I'm armed with that information about the backup process, I will go with manual deletions based on dates a bit more confidently. I can at least whittle that folder down by 12 GB now without worrying. I just don't know what to do when it comes to the point that the rest of these files need to be transferred to a new machine. Hopefully, letting go of the oldest of them will feel more comfortable for her by then.

I was thinking that if the folder didn't have an info.plist file, that the folder in question was not complete and therefore unretrievable through iTunes. I believe, although I do not know for a fact, that functional backups must have an info.plist file present. However, I think this point has become moot as I want to move on to other projects.

Thanks for your help.

Thanks, this was extremely helpful.

There are temporary files created when you Restore, and they were probably not deleted before it crashed. try running Windows Disk Cleanup or a good 3rd party disk utility such as CCleaner.

For some reason, iTunes feels it needs to create many GB of files to do a "restore" of an iTunes iOS backup. Shabbily, it doesn't clean up after itself when the restore fails. Worse, it doesn't even detect the old GB of files when you try to restore again. You could erase your entire hard drive trying to free up enough space to do a restore!

If you go into ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup, you will find a folder for each of your iOS backups AND attemped/failed restore attempts. The restore attempts have the same name as one of the backups with more random-looking text appended. You can also identify them from their modification date/times, which will match with that of your restore attempts.

In MY OWN experience, deleting the folders from these restore attempts causes no problems. YMMV.

Hey Apple! Any thought of fixing this?

I've never had a failed restore attempt in 5 years, so I guess I've never noticed this.

Ha! I just did a restore that SUCCEEDED and iTunes didn't clean up. In ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup it left behind a folder that's exactly the same size as the one containing the backup. What the heck is going on here, Apple?

The same thing happened to my friend. Her HD is now burdened with 65 GB worth of backup folders and I want to clear out some of the mess. However, she has more than one phone and wishes to keep 4 backups on file. There are 7 folders in the directory. I need help to figure out what I can get rid of. I have two backups on my HD and they're less than 12 GB, so something is seriously wrong with her's.

And seriously, not informing the user of insufficient disk space is an unforgiveable programming mistake. That sort of thing hasn't been an issue for more than 20 years. I could NOT believe it when it happened and it reflects poorly on Apple's programming abilities and how I feel about Apple products. I can't remember the last time I had this sort of issue with PC based software.

fightswithappledevices wrote:

The same thing happened to my friend. Her HD is now burdened with 65 GB worth of backup folders and I want to clear out some of the mess. However, she has more than one phone and wishes to keep 4 backups on file. There are 7 folders in the directory. I need help to figure out what I can get rid of. I have two backups on my HD and they're less than 12 GB, so something is seriously wrong with her's.

Unless your phone and her phones have exactly the same apps and the same data in each app (identical emails, texts, SMS, photos, etc) the comparison of the backup size is meaningless. You have one phone, she has more than one (you didn't say how many); you have 2 backups, she has 7, so 65 GB is not out of the question for 7 backups. But backing up through iTunes only permits one backup on the computer, and it's an incremental backup. The exception is when you upgrade the phone it will keep a "before" and "after" backup. If you have more than one backup (or she does) only the latest one is usable. So you might as well delete the others. To delete a backup go to iTunes Preferences, Devices tab. It will list all of the backups and the dates they were made. You can click on any backup and delete it.

If you want to have more than one backup per device the only way to do it is to back up the directory containing the backup to another location on your drive or to a backup drive. If you have a Mac the built it Time Machine backup app will do this automatically. For Windows you need to use a 3rd party backup tool.

For more information on backups see: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4946

The only way to find out if they are viable is to try to restore one. Go to the iPhone Summary page in iTunes and click "Restore from backup" and see how many backups it gives you a choice of. It will not list any it can't restore. You can then cancel; you don't have to follow through and actually restore.

I gather you have Windows. Sometimes when a program deletes items in Windows they don't actually disappear. Especially when it deletes a large number. You need to delete the folder using Windows Explorer. Change the folder view to "details", then identify backups by the date the folder was last updated.

An Incremental backup is a backup that only includes things that have changed since the previous backup.

Well, in checking, her older iP4 lists 3 choices and the new iP5 lists 4 choices.

I've been working with Windows for a long time and I've never encountered an issue of refusing or failing to delete, except for a case with an anti-viral firewall program, certain freewares that weren't as developed as software from a major company, corrupted HD sectors/MFTs, and complicated viruses.

I was pretty much resigned to going by the date based on the lack of easily accesible information regarding my issues. However, in a way, your concept of an "incremental backup" is what was worrying me. I have no information about whether files between folders are linked or inter-dependent, as in an incremental accumlation of data, within the backup/restore process. So, I am worried that if I just delete these folders without confirmation of this, that later on when we try to perform a restore that we will discover a new problem. That's part of the unfairness in this setup, because I can't identify that these files are useless by any method other than the date of the folder compared to dates listed in iTunes backup listing. That's why I was asking about specific files like info.plist to see if that could give an indication.

There is no cross linking between folders. The backup is a SQLite database; each object backed up is a database entry from the iPhone and occupies 1 file in the database. If an entry has changed since the last backup just that file is replaced. So it is safe to go by the date of the last update for the folder.

I have no idea why deleting from within iTunes sometimes does not delete all of the files in the backup, but it has always been that way with iTunes for Windows. I have not had that problem on a Mac. I suspect it is a race condition where iTunes asynchronously sends a list of potentially thousands of deletions to the Windows file manager in a "fire and forget" mode. so if a file cannot be deleted for some reason (like the directory being temporarily locked) iTunes doesn't know about it. BTW, I have experienced problems deleting large numbers of files in a single operation with Windows if they are in the same directory.

info.plist won't help you; it is just the property file for the database. manifest.mbdb is the index, but it is a binary file. A sqlite database client will open it, or you can get one of the many iPhone backup extractor apps that are available.