iPhone 4s says not enough local storage to install apps

If you are getting the message that there is Not Enough space... then you need to Delete more stuff to create more space...

The iPhone needs 2 to 3 times the size of the app being installed during the installation process. That extra space is freed after the installation is complete. So you need to delete some content to complete the install. You can add it back later.

I can't thank you enough for that tip. Every time I would ask this on a message board the only reply I would get was "delete more apps to make more space". Well duh, thats obvious. What I needed to know was if I needed, for lack of a better word a "buffer zone". I even asked Apple Tech Support, and got the same answer" delete more apps" but no one would tell me how much space I needed to make. I tried downloading "last express", amazing game by the way, on an 3GS 8g phone. App size is around 1.3 g. Had to make around 3.3 g available so I could finally download. And trying to determine what apps I could do without was kinda hard. Now that I know this tip there are many other games I can finally get that I though I couldn't before. Well thanks anyhow.

hey lawrence i was having the same problem as shaunatate so i took your help and it worked and then while the app was installing i got that message again, and the app won't install.... so i tried to delete some more stuff and it keeps on happening...... any advice??? much apreciated

best regards

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When you connect the phone to iTunes and click on its name the memory usage of the phone is displayed in iTunes at the bottom of the window. Look at free space. To be safe that should be 3 times the size of the app you want to install. Also look at the size of Other. If it is very larger (greater than 2 GB) you have memory corruption on your phone; you should use the Restore button in iTunes to reinstall iOS, which will clean up corrupt memory.

that is not true lawrence, having more than 2g of other dowes not mean corruption, and the reason why a restore fixes the issue is because restoring takes everything off the phone. having 2g may mean you have lots of bookmarks, in app memory, and especially texts

Let's start with 2 GB (although I said greater than 2 GB). Bookmarks take about 100 bytes. So having lots of bookmarks means about 20 million bookmarks. Which is very unlikely. Texts are 140 bytes maximum. If you add the phone number plus overhead you may get up to 200 bytes, or 10 million texts. Do you really have that many? Assuming they are MMS messages instead of texts, and each one has a 1 MB image, that's still 2,000 MMS messages. Apps use data, but you can find out how much they use by looking in Settings/General/Usage and adding up everything that is not Music, Podcasts, Video, Photos.

It also depends on your model. A 64GB iPhone will have larger Other than a 32GB or 16 GB because the storage iNode table managed by iOS is larger. But for 99% of users Other significantly larger than 2GB is probably memory corruption.

I just noticed that instead of using the "update all" button when updating apps- you may get the error of not enough local storage. This can be the case when less than 1.2 GB remaining space on device. I noticed that when major applications like PAGES, KEYNOTE and NUMBERS are included in the update list (several have come out recently) that you get this error.

My solution was to update individually all the apps- starting with the "smaller" apps (i.e. everything BUT pages, keynote and numbers). Every app updated correctly and without error. Then I went through again, and updated each on of the "major" apps" individually.

Bottom line, if you get the "not enough space" error - AVOID using the single "UPDATE ALL" button on your device; step through updates individually, or a few at a time- and you should have no problems-- and you don't have to selectively delete other apps while still having 1GB of space available for use.

Cheers

Hmm, my iPhone 4S (16 GB - Black) says not enough local storage to install/download those movies, games, music, and other apps when my iPhone memory is full.... Or I may needs to get increase more space on my iPhone 4S memory to be 32, 64, 128, or 256 GB in the future when I downloads many features over 5,000,000 apps....

There is no way to expand the memory of an iPhone, except by selling it and buying one with larger capacity.