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iTunes continues to display 5+GB of photo data usage after all photos have been deleted

Hello there,

I've had no luck finding this particular issue online; I don't know if I'm describing it clearly.

I have an old 16GB iPad (2nd gen I think?) that says I'm holding nearly 6 GB of photos on it when I sync with iTunes, and yet I've imported and deleted all of the photos on the device. There isn't a single photo in the Camera Roll at all anymore.

My wife has had similar problems with her iPhone; after importing and deleting photos, it seems like iTunes isn't correctly resetting the amount of data that's actually taken up by photos anymore.

Does this problem make any sense as I've described it? Short of restoring the iPad altogether, which I really don't want to do, is anyone here aware of how to get iTunes to report this usage correctly? This error is tying up more than one-third of my iPad's storage capacity! 🙂

With thanks,

Dustin.

Mac OS 10.9.3

iOS 7.0.2

iMac, OS X Mavericks (10.9.3)

Posted on Sep 30, 2014 11:37 AM

Top-ranking reply

scabthepoet

Level 1

10 points

Posted on Mar 15, 2015 2:15 PM

I was having the same issue on my iPhone. I have an iPad, too, that is doing the same thing (as is my wife's iPhone). Here is what works and what I posted a few minutes ago in the iPhone Apple Support Forum.

I've been searching for an answer to this very problem for a solid day. Here is what I did that worked for me. No reset. No need to upgrade to more Cloud storage or anything else. I had already deleted out every picture from my phone, including "Messages" and the "recently deleted" album, etc. There really are phantom pictures in there, but the only way to see them and delete them is to:

Go to Settings
Date & Time
Untoggle "Set Automatically"
Manually change the date back. For example, if today is March 15, 2015, choose August 1, 2014. (You can change it back once we're done)
Close out of that
Open "Photos"
Select "Albums"
If, like me, you had already cleared out everything from the Camera Roll and "Recently Deleted" folder, you'll smile to see that your "Recently Deleted" folder now has thousands of images back. Those are your phantom photos
Open it, "Select" and start deleting
Now, go back into Settings - General - Usage - Storage - Manage Storage - and you'll notice your Photo & Camera is empty if you deleted everything

I hope this works for everyone and that I saved you all the time I wasted searching for an answer myself -- only to never find one. Now you have the answer.

I went from barely having any room left on my phone to almost brand new again.

Take care.

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63 replies

Dec 22, 2016 6:09 PM in response to scabthepoet

Thanks, mate! Worked a treat! Does that mean that deleting it doesn't actually delete the files until the files are deleted again in recently deleted?

Jan 16, 2017 5:01 PM in response to scabthepoet

Thanks a lot my friend 🙂 🙂 Works Like charm 🙂

I want to give you 10 stars, but you know apple 😝

AAminoff

Level 1

4 points

May 3, 2017 11:20 AM in response to scabthepoet

Thank you, this worked for me too. Had 10 GB reappear after a full reset and was going nuts.

iTunes continues to display 5+GB of photo data usage after all photos have been deleted