iTunes Match on the iPhone 4 uses all free space

I've had similar problems. Am in the midst of an interrupted service discussion with Apple about it.

When you plug the phone into your computer and look at it in iTunes, if your problem is like mine, the storage category "other" has filled up all the empty space on your phone.

As a workaround, try turning off iTunes Match and Show All Music (in settings -> music), and then restoring from an iCloud backup - or even just *running* an iCloud backup! (From settings -> iCloud -> storage & backup) This afternoon, weirdly, I found that just backing up to iCloud (with Match turned off) cleared all the unwanted/corrupted 'other' data and I got free space back again.

Then you can turn Match back on - and, eventually, the problem starts all over again and you can watch your 'Other' storage levels climb...... Like I said, it's a workaround, not a fix. :-/

I forgot a step: after running the iCloud backup, reboot the phone by switching it on and off.

That combination of steps just worked again for me - after I spent the evening watching the "other" storage climb by gigabytes, from me merely browsing my iTunes Match library without downloading a thing! Apple's engineers really need to have a look at this.

I'm having this problem too and it's pretty annoying. :/ Clearing the Music app data under Settings > General > Usage doesn't work.

I hope this bug gets fixed soon because it defeats the purpose of having your music in the cloud if it ends up filling your memory to capacity.

Just wanted to add my name to the pile here. I'm about at my wit's end with this problem. I keep getting the "data almost full" notification despite having done nothing on my phone that would reduce my data. I've restored my iPhone at least 5 times now & within a day or two of doing so (sometimes, mere hours) I'm seeing the "data almost full" message. I deleted all my messages, apps, photos, music in the hopes that it would solve my problem. Alomst 8GB is being used by "other" every time I look at the data usage in iTunes. Using a process of elimination, I've now come to conclude that this problem is occurring once I turn on iTunes match.

I can't add much more to the discussion or offer any solutions other than keeping iTunes match turned off on your phone. This is clearly not a solution & I'm feeling pretty agreived with the fact that I just renewed my subscription. I'm going to try & contact Apple directly about this issue but without having an active Apple Care account on my iPhone, I'm not sure how much support I'm likely to get.

Subscribing to this topic in the hopes that some sort of solution comes about soon.

Another name looking for a solution -

I've got about 23,000 songs that I keep on Match and up until about a month ago, I could keep iTM open on my iphone (4) and ipad (2) with no issues. For the past month, any available free space on both the ipad and iphone is erased and I get a message that says my storage is full. If I turn off iTM and restart the device, all my storage is back (13 GB on the ipad and 4 GB on the iphone). Once I turn iTM on, there is no more storage. There is no music on either device and it is set to not automatically download purchases. The reason I like(d) iTM was that I would have access to my music without having to plug in my ipod classic everywhere. The music should just stream without taking up a significant amount of storage, no? It would be great if there was a fix for this.

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

I am also reporting the same behavior. I, like billybaloney, have an almost "topped-out" iTunes Match collection (I actually have to manage keeping the matched content under the Apple 25K limit, but that is a different matter). Whenever I open Music app on my phone - 4S, iOS 7.11 - I see my available storage go to nil, and I start getting the "Storage Almost Full" messages. Which, if you have received them, also puts a significant drag on the performance of the device.

I am fully aware of the download locally (device) of "played" content, so I expect the number of songs and albums I have played to be resident on the phone after, and that requiring manual cleanup. I can see this by taking the phone offline (airplane mode, or literally out of coverage), and then opening the Music app and seeing only what is truly on the device.

I suspect that the "eater of free space" in the iTunes Match arena, for users with a large library of iCloud selections, is as simple as the iTunes library info to render for selection (not the music, but the artist, album, song and playlist lists, and the album artwork). Resetting your phone is a PITA for workaround. Something needs to be done, but I have a feeling nothing will. Or it will require an iOS update to a newer version that my devices won't be eligible to load.

Any insight or help would be great. Workarounds are only that: work arounds. Solution is what is needed.

Created an account on these forums just to subscribe to this thread. I suffer from this bug too: it's infuriating!

Still, it's a good way to smoke out those apps that don't error out gracefully when the storage is 100% full. Tweetbot, I'm looking at you...

Interestingly it appears that storage isn't mysteriously filled up if "Show All Music" is unchecked even though iTunes Match is checked. I wonder what possible use that combination of flags is to anybody. OK, the "Show All Music" flag is there for iTunes Store purchases outside of Match too, but if you have Match turned on then it's not much use unless "Show All Music" is turned on as well.

Same problem. Until about 2 months ago, was happily using iTunes match on my iPhone 4 every day. Then suddenly one day, storage full. Turn off iTunes match, restart, etc, etc., space is available again. This service was great when it worked, now it is useless.

geofferino87, did you get any response back from Apple?

I'm also experiencing this... and have also considered cancelling when my subscription is up.

I'm currently bordering the 25k limit.

Amazon Cloud Player is looking better and better...

Yeah, I'm actually subscribing to both at the moment. The Amazon Music app isn't as intuitive or well-designed as Apple's app, but hey at least you can stream your music properly, right? Here are just a few observations on Amazon Music app:

1) When you open the app, it always opens up to the albums view. Not sure about others, but when I want to listen to music I usually think about an artist or genre first, not a specific album.

2) It suffers from the known iPhone memory issue so if you're not actively using the app but switch back to it after a couple minutes, it resets the app to the default view mentioned above. This is a problem because if you want to continue from the specific artist/album/song you were listening, you lose that and have to start over again.

3) With my car stereo, pressing the play button would start up the song where it left off if I was listening to the Apple Music app. Not so with the Amazon Music app—many times I have to press play within the app to start the music again. The integration is a key feature with Apple's applications.

4) Amazon uses a web interface to manage music from the desktop. It's fine but just not as intuitive as iTunes (granted, iTunes has it's own warts)

Ah, I've never had a chance to play with Amazon. I use my phone for music in the car and hearing about all those deficiencies with Amazon makes me not have a good feeling about it.

I do like iTunes Match because of its integration.