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iTunes says iPhone over capacity and won't sync

Suddenly iTunes is telling me my iPhone (4s) is 12G over capacity when the phone shows over 15G free. Consequently, I can't sync after adding anything new in iTunes. This seems to have something to do with the music management section. After performing a complete restore, in the "summary" section of iTunes for my phone, it shows the correct amount of free space. However, when I check the "sync only checked songs and videos" box, it suddenly shows that I'm over capacity. I also have unchecked "iCloud" in the backup and selected "this computer" instead, as I suspect this has something to do with iTunes reading my iCloud capacity rather then the true capacity and free space of the iPhone.


I've restored several times, removed unneeded apps, and done everything I can think of. Any suggestions?

iPhone 4S, iOS 8.0.2, iMac 2.4 Ghz Core 2 Duo

Posted on Oct 19, 2014 12:04 PM

Reply
32 replies

Aug 28, 2017 6:17 PM in response to Matt62704

When you start syncing your iDevice in iTunes and then you get this annoying message (especially when it tells you it needs like 1.4MB and there is 300MB available?!): 'The iPhone/iPad “iPhone(insert name)” cannot be synced because there is not enough free space to hold all the selected items'. What do you do?


Basically the problem, in many cases, seems to be that iTunes thinks it has too many updates to install on your iPhone/iPad and it isn't smart enough to load them one at a time when there's not enough space to do them all??


Fortunately it can often be side-stepped by just taking your iPhone/iPad and clicking on the App Store app, then tapping on the Updates tab, and then tapping on 'Update All' at the top right. If that complains that there's not enough space you can let do some updates then try again (and again) and will update the rest of the apps. Then the sync should be fine with iTunes.


This solution from http://timesinker.blogspot.com/2015/12/the-iphone-cannot-be-synced-because.html worked for me after (unsuccessfully) trying everything suggested by Apple.

Dec 12, 2017 3:23 PM in response to Matt62704

Writing a response because I've had this issue and finally solved it.


Essentially, you have music that is on your phone in addition to that you are syncing and iTunes is counting it twice.

What I did was first backed up my phone to my computer (not iCloud as to ensure I had a copy of everything on my computer in case things went wrong).


Next, I removed ALL songs from my phone. This is tricky, because for me it took going through and manually unchecking any playlist/artist/album that I may have added.


IN ADDITION, I then went on my phone and deleted all music from my iPhone. It took a number of times to make sure that all items were unchecked and that I had no music on my device or that would sync to my device.


Once you get rid of ALL music on your device (iphone) and make sure that no music is syncing, sync again so that iTunes shoes that you have no audio on your phone.


Then, to start the process over, sync one song.


Finally, uncheck that song and then sync your playlists and other music as you would normally like to.


You're welcome.

Oct 22, 2014 9:42 AM in response to Matt62704

Hey there Matt,


It sound slike you are unable to sync your phone becuase iTunes thinks there is not enough space on the device. I would go over the troubleshooting in the following article to help you get the issue resolved:


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

Try disconnecting and reconnecting your device, then syncing again to solve this issue.

Orphaned files may remain on your iOS device if it is physically disconnected while syncing music, podcasts, videos, or photos. This can prevent iTunes from syncing the iOS device on subsequent sync sessions. When this happens, the Capacity indicator in iTunes may report a large amount of "Other" disk usage for the iOS device. To resolve this issue:


  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.

All the very best,

Sterling

Oct 28, 2014 8:21 PM in response to sterling r

Hi,

Steps 1-5 don't resolve the issue and I'm prepared to restore my phone.

I think that, having updated iOS, the computer isn't recognising the many songs on my iPhone that were synced from my macbook, and wants to include them again, adding them and thereby taking up more memory than is available.

Is there a way of helping iTunes recognise the songs on my iPhone that are selected in iTunes to sync, and update its database of what it knows is already on my phone, then it just needs to add any additional ones?

Thanks

Steve

Oct 29, 2014 6:41 AM in response to Cooper S

Have you checked the Capacity indicator of your iPhone when it is connected to iTunes? That will show you how the space is being used up. Is there one category that is trying to add more than you think it should, i.e. Photos? Take particular note of Other, which sterling mentioned in his/her post. There will always be a small amount of Other on your device, but too much (anything over 1GB) indicates corrupted files that you need to address, as sterling directed.


iTunes is telling me my iPhone (4s) is 12G over capacity when the phone shows over 15G free.

Don't forget, that means that iTunes is trying to Sync 12GB more than the phone has space for, so that means that iTunes is trying to add another 27GB of new items to your phone, so that will use the 15GB of free space but also needs another 12GB to put on everything that you are trying to add.


So either you are trying to Sync more than the phone can hold, or Other is taking up unnecessary space.

Feb 6, 2015 7:56 PM in response to Cooper S

I'm suffering with this issue as well. Sync-ing has gotten to be a huge headache, because one out of every three times I sync I get this message, while my usage bar shows plenty of space.


I'm not sure where the alleged lack of space has come from: I can get the phone to sync if I uncheck "Sync my music," but then I have to add it again and wait for the songs to sync.

iTunes shows an increased propensity to crash during these little difficulties.

Feb 7, 2015 5:17 AM in response to OtterStCatch

The general method to recover from this is:

  1. Backup device
  2. Restore as a new device
  3. Restore backup taken earlier

It seems to be caused by an interrupted sync session which, presumably, leaves the software confused about what has and has not already been copied to the device. Ideally there would be some sort of automatic integrity check that tidies up when this happens.


tt2

Mar 6, 2015 7:35 PM in response to sterling r

I had the overcapacity issue and each time I tried to sync iTunes showed a large yellow 23GB bar for OTHER. The above procedure bysterling r SOLVED my "overcapacity issue". I followed the above but I also disconnected my iphone and restarted it and also quit iTunes and restarted it. After reconnecting the iphone to iTunes it now showed my 23GB yellow OTHER correctly as the respective Apps, Videos, Documents categories. A Synch after that worked just fine !

Mar 30, 2015 3:53 PM in response to Chris Milligan

When the media on the device won't update as expected during a sync the method that usually works is this:

  1. Export the contents of the camera roll. (You should do this routinely anyway.)
  2. Backup the device, unless you have a recent backup that you would prefer to restore.
  3. Restore as a new device. (The general restore process doesn't seem to clear things out before reloading, so there can be issues with missing artwork or incorrect capacity calculations.)
  4. Restore the chosen backup.

In some cases it might pay to use the recovery mode method given in HT201263: If you can't update or restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch at step 3 to ensure that a device has been completely reset before reloading your content.


tt2

Apr 26, 2015 2:40 PM in response to Matt62704

Try a different cable. I have two, one of which is taped-up at each end. It has worked fine until tonight with the 'over capacity' issue. After an hour of reading various forum posts I came across one suggesting using a new cable. I followed the advice and the problem was solved. Needless to say the damaged cabled has been thrown away. I hope this will solve the problem for you.

May 31, 2015 7:39 PM in response to Matt62704

I'm having this problem too and it is awful. APPLE, PLEASE FIX THIS! I love my iphone but I am ready to trade it in for a (gasp) android if there isn't a fix soon, backing up is a huge headache every time because I have to completely reset my phone every time, reinstalling all of the apps and everything is a time consuming black hole. :`(

iTunes says iPhone over capacity and won't sync

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