Difference in iPhone storage space in shown iTunes and iPhone setting

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Level 1

9 points

Difference in iPhone storage space in shown iTunes and iPhone setting

Hey everyone,

Just a quick question. When I connect my iPhone I noticed that there is a difference between the available storage space shown in iTunes and in my iPhone settings. To clarify, when the iPhone is hooked up to my MacBook, iTunes states that the available storage space is 26GB, but my iPhone shows in the settings menu that there's only 12GB available.

Additionally, I did see this happening before on my previous iPhone and also on my iPad.

Any ideas on why this happens? And which of the two is the more accurate estimation?

Kind regards,

Izzy

iPhone 6s Plus, iOS 9.3.1

Posted on May 4, 2016 8:45 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

ManSinha

Level 6

12,171 points

May 4, 2016 10:58 AM in response to Izzy_Dixie

The various methods do not always tally - please see the discussion thread

iPad Mini Storage Issue

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Answer 2

Izzy_Dixie Author

Level 1

9 points

May 4, 2016 10:59 AM in response to ManSinha

Couldn't find something similar, cheers!

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Answer 3

ManSinha

Level 6

12,171 points

May 4, 2016 11:09 AM in response to Izzy_Dixie

Sorry - this is more pertinent to the iPhone

Storage data different on iPhone and iTunes

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Answer 4

elcpu

Level 7

31,481 points

May 4, 2016 11:22 AM in response to Izzy_Dixie

The amounts shown under the iPhone Storage setting and iTunes rarely match. My 4 iOS devices always report different amounts. The amount reported by iTunes is an estimate only which gets closer to the phone right after a sync but never truly matches. In addition your phone could have a corrupted system or app which tends to bloat storage (note emphasis on could). It so you would have to do a restore to resolve. Right after a restore the amounts come closer to matching but again, never the same. The reason may be due to two categories, Documents & Data and Other. Those categories are where iOS places cached and other material that in its opinion does not fit into the apps. iTunes reports an estimate for those, the phone does not report them as separate items but it affects the remaining storage.

Different “Available” amounts reported by iPhone and iTunes

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