why is yosemite or iTunes causing overcapacity problem

Hey there dellarrin,

It sounds like you have upgraded to Yosemite, and you are unable to sync your phone to your iTunes library because iTunes thinks there is not enough space.

iOS: "Not enough free space" alert when trying to sync

1. Turn off the music or photo sync option in iTunes for the device.
2. Click Apply to sync the changes to the device.
3. Turn the music and photo sync options for the device on again.
4. Click Apply again to try to sync the device to iTunes.
   If the 'Not enough free space' alert appears, continue to step 5.
5. Turn off the automatic syncing functions for the iOS device. To do this:
   1. Select the iOS device from the iTunes window and click the Summary tab.
   2. Deselect "Automatically sync when this device is connected" and select the "Sync only checked songs and videos" checkbox.
   3. Click Apply to sync the changes to the device.
   4. Reduce the amount of data that is being synced to the device and resync the device. For example, if syncing your Music library exceeds the memory capacity of the device, choose "Selected playlists" to transfer rather than "All songs and playlists" under the Music tab in iTunes.
      If the 'Not enough free space' alert appears, continue to step 6.
6. Restore using iTunes.

Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.

Cheers,

Sterling

Well this didn't help. I'm at the point of reporting to consumer affairs and switching to Android. IOS 8 and iTunes 12 have consumed all of my limited free time over the past week trying to deal with error after error. First it pretended to Sync but didn't copy songs over. Now it won't Sync because it things extra space is required despite the fact that oodles of space is available on the iPhone - I'm copying over less than what I had pre IOS8. I performed all steps above, including the painful restore - synced (sort of) once - then tried to Sync again and same problem. This is absolutely hopeless. Any advice that won't consume another 100 hours of my limited time would be appreciated. I'm not going to go through another "upgrade" like this again - so frustrated, fed up and seriously angry that my next phone will be anything but Apple.

Excellent, I'm glad the issue is resolved!

drjnc wrote:

Well this didn't help. I'm at the point of reporting to consumer affairs and switching to Android.

I think this is something you should do immediately!

This is absolutely hopeless.

How so?

dellarin solved his issue just fine...

While sarcasm is always appreciated in help forums, it doesn't actually solve the issue. I'm happy for dellarrin that one of the options (naturally the most time-consuming and inconvenient restore option) worked for him, but it hasn't worked for me and, based on the amount of rage online about this and related problems with ios updates it's clear that there's not a single - or single set - of solutions that works for all.

drjnc wrote:

While sarcasm is always appreciated in help forums, it doesn't actually solve the issue.

but contacting consumer affairs will?

Even if your issue gets resolved, you are already at the point of contacting consumer affairs and switching to Android.

So you would now switch back to iPhone?

or was your statement simply some sort of threat/sarcasm?

chris CA I'm not sure why you bother clogging up the forum with unhelpful responses - we get it, you love Apple

As a consumer lawyer I can assure you that when companies don't adhere to their legal obligations in relation to their products a sufficient number of complaints can lead to corporate action to improve outcomes - or at least better educate consumers about their rights when products stop performing as advertised - problem is most people don't know how or can't be bothered taking the time to make complaints through the right channels

ALthough I certainly intend to explore switching to another phone when contract expires, I would like to get mine working properly both while still under contract and to enable me to pass it on in working condition. Also have iPad and iPad mini both experiencing same 'upgrade' issues so would like that resolved.

Any actual help/advice is therefore appreciated.

drjnc wrote:

chris CA I'm not sure why you bother clogging up the forum with unhelpful responses - we get it, you love Apple

No idea where you got this from.

My comments were made at your drivel. Nothing to do with me liking or not Apple.

We get it. You hate Apple and come here simply to post FUD and make threats…

Restore your iDevice as new using iTunes.

If this fixes them, restore them from backup.