Matt62704

Q: 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

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Q: iTunes says iPhone over capacity and won't sync

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  • by eyewest,Helpful

    eyewest eyewest Jul 30, 2015 12:12 PM in response to Matt62704
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Jul 30, 2015 12:12 PM in response to Matt62704

    Finally found the fix.. (it worked for me)

    iTunes needs to "recalculate capacity"

    1. Connect the iPad, iPod, or iPhone to a computer
    2. Launch iTunes
    3. Hold the Power and Home button until the device forcibly reboots
    4. Relaunch iTunes


    ...and that's all

  • by Cedric Hohnstadt,

    Cedric Hohnstadt Cedric Hohnstadt Aug 3, 2015 10:42 AM in response to eyewest
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Aug 3, 2015 10:42 AM in response to eyewest

    eyewest - Thanks, that worked for me!

  • by Sarukun,

    Sarukun Sarukun Sep 9, 2015 2:15 PM in response to chrismontana
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 9, 2015 2:15 PM in response to chrismontana

    Thanks Chris, that worked immediately!

    Just out of curiosity, after having tried with another cable and solved the problem, I tried with the previous, "problematic" cable again, and it worked fine.

    Mystery.

    S

  • by aeonstarr,

    aeonstarr aeonstarr Nov 13, 2015 10:12 AM in response to eyewest
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 13, 2015 10:12 AM in response to eyewest

    Thank you eyewest! Your solution worked immediately.

  • by mfynn,

    mfynn mfynn Nov 23, 2015 4:16 PM in response to eyewest
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 23, 2015 4:16 PM in response to eyewest

    Eyewest,

    I could just kiss you!  I haven't been able to sync for over a month because of this problem and your solution fixed it!  I was ready to do a restore but it wanted to re-download ios 9.1 and that takes almost 4 hours.  I had the backup but didn't want the hassle of the restore.  This did it!  Now all the bizarre "OTHER" space is gone and it is showing my correct available space!  Thank you very much!

  • by DaveM@,

    DaveM@ DaveM@ Dec 1, 2015 9:29 AM in response to eyewest
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 1, 2015 9:29 AM in response to eyewest

    Thanks eyewest, I've had this issue off and on now for ages across multiple OS' and iTunes versions.  So many other users with a similar problem you would think that Apple would of fixed this by now.  At the very least they could give the same instructions as you do rather than the crap they copy/paste to everyone else.  I'd like to see an Apple rep reply to this thread recognizing this issue.

  • by Wurlinator,

    Wurlinator Wurlinator Dec 2, 2015 1:56 PM in response to eyewest
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 2, 2015 1:56 PM in response to eyewest

    That is so cool!! Thanks so much, have encountered this issue about 5 times in a little over a year. Previously a complete reset and re-adding the backed up file worked. So much quicker, thanks for sharing.

  • by Nathan187,

    Nathan187 Nathan187 Jan 8, 2016 3:05 PM in response to sterling r
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Jan 8, 2016 3:05 PM in response to sterling r

    In my case, and I'm not sure how this happened...a lot of my albums/CD had all there items checked.  For many of them, I only have a few songs I want synced...and I have unchecked a lot of songs.  About 70% of all my full albums/CDs had all the **** songs checked.  Took about 30 minutes for me to scan them all and uncheck undesired songs.  That helped

  • by paulpp,

    paulpp paulpp Apr 4, 2016 8:52 AM in response to Matt62704
    Level 1 (32 points)
    Mac OS X
    Apr 4, 2016 8:52 AM in response to Matt62704

    Am having a similar issue.  When syncing I get the following message (which clearly does not make sense) - "The iPhone “iPhone 6s” cannot be synced because there is not enough free space to hold all of the selected items (1 MB required, 2.61 GB available)."

    Have tried all the suggested solutions without success

  • by paulpp,

    paulpp paulpp Apr 4, 2016 9:24 AM in response to paulpp
    Level 1 (32 points)
    Mac OS X
    Apr 4, 2016 9:24 AM in response to paulpp

    Very odd but no problems if I sync over wifi.  Tried changing the cable I use, etc, but still problems if syncing via cable?

  • by Nathan187,

    Nathan187 Nathan187 Apr 4, 2016 10:33 AM in response to paulpp
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Apr 4, 2016 10:33 AM in response to paulpp

    in my case, for some reason in itunes...songs that were previously unchecked were getting rechecked and i don't know why this was happening and it's still happening to this day.

     

    another thread, someone suggested to create playlist and just sync songs from your playlist.  initially, i was syncing my entire library.  i had a ton of song unchecked and those wouldn't get synced to the phone.  however, somehow....songs tend to be rechecked by itunes for some reason...and when i did a sync, i would have a "not enough room" error.

     

    check out this thread:  Re: why does my songs recheck themselves

  • by puyan101,

    puyan101 puyan101 Jul 12, 2016 5:17 PM in response to eyewest
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Jul 12, 2016 5:17 PM in response to eyewest

    eyewest you've solved my problem - cheers mate

  • by aaragam,

    aaragam aaragam Sep 7, 2016 2:21 PM in response to Matt62704
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Sep 7, 2016 2:21 PM in response to Matt62704

    SOLVED my case. I tried many options listed on the forum but to no avail. I narrowed down the problem to the smart playlist 'Recently Played'. This has over 9k songs and if I had this playlist checked, I would get the 'not enough capacity' error while syncing. I edited the playlist settings to limit the content to lot less than 9k - for e.g., added filters such that # of plays is > 0, recently played in the last 12 months, etc. After doing so, I am able to sync successfully. I am guessing with an iOS update in the recent years, the criteria for the smart playlist got changed and could have affected syncing.

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