Possible Bug in iOS 8 via Streaming iTunes Video results in lost storage space?

In response to only having 12.7 gb total on a 16 gb phone, that's always going to be the case, you can't change that. iOS is always going to take up some of that 16 gb space, so you technically only really have 12.7 gb of storage you can use.

As for streaming the movie, yes, it does take up space on the phone. I've been having this issue too, but it actually existed in iOS 7 too. Basically, the movie is downloading to your phone while you're watching it, and as far as I can tell, there is no way to get rid of it on the phone itself. However, there's an app called iBrowse (http://www.ibrowseapp.com) that you can download on your computer, which lets you access certain files on the phone that aren't accessible on the device itself. Once you have it, you can plug your phone into your computer, open the application, and there will be a bunch of folders. The "streamed" movie files should be under CloudAssets, and you just delete the ones taking up space. That should free up the space it was taking away on your phone. And by the way, this isn't just for movies from iTunes, this also happens whenever you "stream" music or tv shows you bought that aren't on your phone. It's a very irritating bug, and I really hope Apple will fix it soon. Until then, I think iBrowse is the best way to free up your storage.

I Used i browse and my cloud assets folder did not have much. Did they move the files in iOS 8?

All I know is the cloud assets folder is where those "streamed" movies are stored now. I actually didn't have iBrowse before iOS 8, so I don't know if the "streamed" movies were located in a different folder in iOS 7. I would say just try looking through all the folders and see if you can find any unusually large files, those could be them. For instance, I had two 1.3 gb files in my cloud assets folder, and both also had a plist file along with them. That could help you in finding the files. Since there's not much there in the folder, I'm also wondering if the files were somehow deleted during the update, and that's why they're not there.

This issue has been not been resolved and iBrowse does not solve all the issues. The streamed movies simply do not appear on the phone under "manage storage" nor do they appear in a folder under Cloud Assets in iBrowse. The only way to stream movies on your phone is if you are willing to do a reset of your phone and erase all content and setting to get your memory back. That can't be healthy.

Resetting your device eill get your storage back, but I don't think it will solve the problem. I tried it once, but the movies were still downloading to my phone after that.

I found a workaround to clear the data out. Go to Settings, Video, and change the Start Playing to From Beginning. After this I loaded the movie again, and then closed it and my storage was given back.

I have exactly the SAME Problem. Today i talk with Apple Support and reset the Device without Backup but Problem is same as before.

I cant believe that only some People has the Problem and there is no working Resolution of it.

I'm positive that this issue for me is caused by streaming iTunes content and then not being able to get rid of this data once I'm done with viewing the content. I've reset my 4s (iOS 8) three times thinking that my issue was syncing with a bad iTunes library (or some unexplained thing only affecting me). This may not be new information but I'll share my experience concerning this here. I believe this is a bug because the idea of streaming content is that "streamed" content isn't stored permanently on your device, but I wasn't able to get rid of the streamed movie data (again, I did not download the movie to my device, I just streamed). I confirmed that my non-downloaded movies were in fact downloaded by turning off wifi and going into airplane mode. I was able to scrub through the entire movie of both the "streamed" movies that were stuck on my device (and taking 9+ GB of data too), the movies were indeed "downloaded." The stuck movies were the movies that still showed up in my videos app after I unchecked the "Show All Videos".

I was able to get rid of this data by going to my iTunes account through iTunes on my mac and hiding the purchased movie (the ones that were stuck on my device). Once my 4s no longer could see the hidden movie it seems to then let go of the local data that was stored on the device. I simply went into iTunes and unhid the movie a minute later . . . it showed back up in my library and my device the way it should . . . available to be streamed but not taking up my precious free space.

iTunes Store: Hiding and unhiding purchases

iPad mini, ios8.1, streaming iTunes videos does indeed take up space on device. However, when looking in Settings >> General >> Usage >> Storage >> Manage Storage, there isn't any Movies category using space. The only way I've been able to figure out how to get back the space is to log out of iTunes and App Store in settings, log back in, power off the device, then power it back on. I instantly get back ~4GB of space, which makes sense because that's about all the space that is left on the 16GB device after the ios and the other installed apps usage.

I know that it's a temporary work-around, but still wanted to share. Logging off / on, powering off / on isn't ideal, but it does work for me, and my son can continue to stream videos without receiving the "no space left" message during a hilarious episode of Phineas and Ferb.

I'm assuming, hoping, that this will be addressed in the next update.

searching.4.answers . . . sounds like you too were able to "inform" your device that the content is no longer needed, great. I posted a solution that later didn't work for me when I streamed another video (see my post dated Nov 1 - cjdmedia). I then had great success using what others in this forum have suggested . . . I downloaded the free ibrowse app (do a quick google search for this and you'll find the website for it). Sure enough it was a piece of cake to navigate to the iCloud assets folder and find and delete the video file. That is my solution from now on. Unfortunate that I need to do that to have my storage space clear.

Also in my post I shared that I thought this was a bug, unfortunately I now believe that this could be intended behavior. The only question is how long does this data just sit there until it is removed by the system? or is it removed by the system? If it is not removed by the system at some point then a strong argument could be made that this is a bug. Streaming means that data is not permenantly saved on the device, right?

My fundamental issue is that I have 16GB storage that really means I have a total of 12.8GB (so says my iPhone). With no personal photos or videos, only 300MB of music, some books etc, and all the apps I want installed on my iPhone I end up with only 9GB available for anything else. A typical movie in HD takes up half of that. Not aware that the data of movies was being stored on my phone while streaming I completely filled up my iPhone only days after completely wiping and setting up. When I got the notification that my phone was full when trying to take video of my kids Trick-or-Treating - I was infuriated that something was hogging the memory in my phone, perhaps I had upgraded to iOS 8 too early before known issues were eliminated. I thought I had 9GB of space for pictures and video! To be fair, Apple did not ruin Halloween because my wife had her iPhone. I also know that this "issue" has been around since iOS 7 (based on my searching) and I haven't seen any confirmation it has ever been dealt with. From another apple discussion forum stream itunes purchased movies to iPad I discovered that if your device is almost full you can still "stream" because somehow the system knows how much space you have and then behaves more like what you'd expect from streaming which is interesting.

So to wrap this long post . . . it is obvious that to stream there needs to be data stored locally, but it is unclear how much data and how long this data will stay on your device. The quickest solution (requires a computer) is to use the iBrowse app and manually delete the movie files in the iCloud assets folder.

I think what's happening here is when you go to "stream" the movie or show what it's really doing is downloading it while you watch. If you just go into the movie or show the icon afterwords will still have the download button, so your device doesn't know its downloaded but it knows the space is taken. To fix this you have to hit download and it will "download" this shouldn't take any extra space since I think it only verifies that it is indeed the right movie. When it's done "downloading" you can then delete it and get your space back. If you don't know what is still stuck in digital limbo you can go to the video settings and set it to only show what's on the device and it will show you what episodes are unaccounted for in the usage sections. Now to stop this from happening in the first place, I suggest you hit the download button before watching the item, so when your done you can just delete it off no waiting for the pseudo-download or wondering where your space went.

Little late to be posting this but I hope it helps someone.

I've seen posts about this bug as far back as April 2014, and it's still not fixed here in late January 2015. I added up all the items in Usage and found it less than 9 GB, yet my 64 GB iPhone 6 Plus warns me I'm running out of storage. When I go into Settings for the Videos app and set it to only show downloaded videos, sure enough, I have a few dozen episodes of the Batman TV show hanging around uninvited. They all display the download from iCloud logo, so the phone sort of thinks they're not downloaded, but of course they are.

I'm used to this kind of schlock from, say, Microsoft. I know of two Excel bugs that are at least a dozen years old. But Apple? Say it ain't so. Can't anyone write quality code anymore?

Update: I talked to Apple support, who of course had never heard of this bug. I gave them the URL of this forum thread. I followed their advice to reset my iPhone to factory settings, and that did get rid of all my phantom downloaded/not-downloaded videos. Two days later, and I just checked again by going to Settings >> iTunes & App Store and toggling off SHOW ALL : Videos then launching the Videos app. Sure enough, I've got 3 downloaded/not-downloaded TV show episodes again.

Really, no one at Apple knows about this bug? It's not considered important? It's filling up people's phones, for crying out loud. Is anyone listening?

hi all,

i'm having the same problem, except streaming video can't be the problem - i've never streamed any videos from itunes, and only a handful of songs. all the listed storage on my 64gb iphone 6 adds up to a little over 16gb, but the phone claims to only have 384mb of space remaining. a couple of the tricks mentioned here, restarting the phone, logging in and out of itunes, etc. have restored 1.3gb - but it fills up again without me doing anything. i deleted 3gb worth of apps - the most i could spare - and that 3gb similarly filled up without any action at all on my part. it took about 2 hours.

any thoughts? gettlng a little frustrated.

gabe

Just to summarise.

I have just had a very lengthy chat with Apple support about the issue of Storage being used up when streaming videos from iTunes and not being able to delete them in General/usage/manage storage.

I HAVE FOUND A FIX!!! and its surprisingly simple.

Go into Settings/iTunes & App Store

Sign out of your account by pressing on your id and selecting sign out.

hold your power button and swipe to turn off.

Turn the phone back on.

Sign back in to your Apple account.

Now your storage should be reset back to what it should be.

I appreciate that this may not work for everyone but after over a year of this problem this has worked for me every time.