iOS 10 has left me with no memory!

Happened to me when updating to 10.2. Restoring to factory settings has fixed it for now. My phone is 16Gb with just over 1GB free (normally). My wild assed guess on what might be happening is:

1. iPhone successfully downloads update automaticcally.

2. Update fails because of lack of memory

3. Because of this, I plug it into iTunes, remove music and start update

4. iTunes does not recognise update already sitting in phone, and re-downloads it before updating

My guess is that the first download is not removed when installing the second, and this might (in this case) be screwing the memory up?

I had the same issue. On my iPhone, Mail was showing as using 8.72 GB storage - yet the same email accounts on my iPad were showing only 1 GB. Here's what I tried, in order - and I restarted my iPhone after each:

- deleting as many emails as I could (manually)

- removing one of the email accounts, and checking - still 8.72

- removing ALL of the email accounts, and checking - now "only" 8.69

- calling Apple support. Agent couldn't figure it out, so forwarded my call to a "senior". He had no ideas other than restoring my iPhone to factory settings. That didn't appeal to me, as I'd lose all of the network passwords I had stored

I finally went to the App Store to look for a utility. I found Phone Cleaner by Daniel Anderson (graphic is a person with a broom on a green background). The first utility is a cache cleaner. ln less than a minute it cleared 8.76 GB, and my mail storage is less than 120 MB. The app also has video, app, and music cleaners, but I haven't tried them. I hope this information helps someone out there!

That sounds amazing. Thank you so much. I shall try it. I did manage to get rid of saved messages which took up a lot of space. It seems that when you delete a message it does not actually get completely deleted. It is moved to a saved messages file. I typed "how to delete saved messages on Google and followed the instructions and it worked and left me with much more space - but your method sounds much better. Thank you once again.

Dear Oboedot, thank you SO much for your most helpful solution. You single-handedly saved my iPhone storage.

I've had the zero memory bug for a while now and it is most annoying, especially when I want to capture a special moment in a photo and my iPhone has decided to have no memory left in that particular moment. iTunes continually shows alomost 1 GB free space on my iPhone, but my iPhone says 0 KB.

I have reset my iPhone before and it did work for me (1.4 GB free space after resetting), but it is an annoying procedure that I do not whish to repeat regularly.

I now downloaded the app you recommended, and by clearing the cache using the app I got 578.4 MB free space instantaneously. It is less than the 1 GB I should have according to iTunes and even less than the 2 GB I calculated that SHOULD be free on my phone, based on adding all the space listed for each individual app, which add up to about 3 GB while for used storage it says 5 GB. Nonetheless 578.4 MB is enough space to be able to use all functions on my iPhone, and I will repeat that routine now whenever neccessary.

I had a similar issue the next day I purchased my iPhone SE 16gb. I tried reaching out to customer support but got little help. Finally I was able to fix it by disabling the "iCloud Drive" (Settings > iCloud > iCloud Drive > off). This culprit seems to share the data info with the iPhone and our poor little iPhone thinks we are running out of space. The moment I switched it off and uninstalled a couple of unwanted apps, my phone has more than 6 gb data now. Amen!

P.S: iCloud helps you to have backup of your data and helps you sync across all your devices. If this feature is sacrosanct for you, then you might want to rethink about implementing this fix. As for me I have kept the sync ON but the drive off.

I've had the same issue of the mysteriously disappearing memory, as well. What I found out was that it was due to automatic app updates. Every time there is an update, your memory reserves dwindle down more and more. I ultimately had to turn off the automatic updates and update manually based on what I was using more. I don't know if that helps you at all, or if this is just too late to help. But, I hope you were able to find something to help you out.

This works I went from 300mb to 2.2gb. Found it in schooledbyscience.com

Head to iTunes and attempt to rent a movie that has a file size larger than you have available on your phone. The user suggested The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, but you can also use Star Wars: The Force Awakens, at 6.4 GB, which is conveniently right in the main menu under movies (at the time of writing).

Your device will then recognize when you don’t have enough memory and ask if you’d like to go to Settings. Click on Settings and you will suddenly have some of your storage freed up.

Repeat the move multiple times and more space will open up.

No. iOS does not delete all caches when no longer needed. For example, I deleted all my photos (including deleting the files in the trash) on the iPhone and stopped all iCloud photo sharing on the iPhone. However, there were gigabytes of thumbnails that hang around. These are not deleted when no longer used. I've also noticed that when you are told that storage is almost full and you delete other apps then Photos continues to fill up the space until you get another low memory warning.

As a software software engineer I have always considered memory as generic term for RAM, ROM, Mass storage in SSDs or mechanical hard discs. I think it is clear that the context implies that it was the SSD "storage" memory I was discussing.

iPhone does updates on purpose to max your storage and force us to buy new ones, it's sick and sad my current I phone I have 1gb of my apps and the rest of the 15gb is god knows where. Don't but iPhone if you know what's best, my phone looks brand new since the day I got it 2 years ago and I can't use it correctly because of storage issues, How to fix your iPhone easy, just buy a android you can always add space when running low. They are also cheaper than these **** iPhones which aren't worth the penny on the dollar to buy

Use your iOS device to check its storage

Go to Settings > General > Storage & iCloud Usage > Manage Storage.

You'll see a list of your apps, and how much storage each one uses. For more information about its usage, tap the app from the list. Cached data and temporary data might not be counted as usage.

Depending on the app, you might be able to delete some of its content, or delete the app and all of its content. If your device is almost full and iOS can't free up space on your device, you might get a Storage Almost Full alert. If you see this alert you'll need to remove some less-used content yourself.

Use iTunes to check the storage on your iOS device

1. Open iTunes on your computer.
2. Connect your device to your computer.
3. In iTunes, select your device. You'll see a bar that shows how much storage your iOS content uses, divided by content type.
4. Move your mouse over a content type, like Other or Apps, to find more information:
   

Here is a list of the types of content on your iOS device, and what each type includes:

• Audio: Songs, audio podcasts, audiobooks, voice memos, and ringtones
• Video: Movies, music videos, and TV shows
• Photos: Camera Roll content, Photo Stream, and Photo Library
• Apps: Installed apps. The content of the apps is listed under Documents & Data.
• Books: iBooks books, audio books, and PDF files
• Documents & Data: Safari Offline Reading List, files stored within installed apps, and app content like contacts, calendars, messages, and emails (and their attachments)
• Other: Settings, Siri voices, system data, and cached files

About cached files in "Other" iOS storage

Cached files are created when streaming or viewing content like music, videos, and photos. When you stream music or video, that content is stored as cached files on your iOS device so you can quickly access it again. iTunes categorizes cached music, videos, and photos as Other instead of actual songs, videos, or photos.

Your iOS device automatically removes cached files and temporary files when your device needs more space.

If storage on an iOS device differs from what you see in iTunes

Since iTunes categorizes cached files as Other, reported usage for Music or Videos might differ. To view usage on your iOS device, go to Settings > General > Usage > Manage Storage.

If you want to delete the cached files from your iOS device

Your iOS device automatically deletes cached files and temporary files when it needs more space. You don't need to delete them yourself.

All the best.

No mention of how to free up storage space by deleting emails

This is all very well but before I updated to 10.0.02, I had 4.5 GB of storage. I then started the update. By the time it was finished, I had only 3.8 GB of storage. Why would a small update from 10.0.01 to 10.0.02 leave 700mb more crap on my phone!? Regardless of my having to delete apps...which no one should ever have to do! If Apple insist on clogging up users phones with useless crap like the messaging GIFs..(ridiculous!) at least do the good business thing and let it be optional! My phone is exactly that...MINE...not Apple's! So don't add useless crap to my storage that I'm not going to want!

You didn't address the question at all. Why does the ios10 update devour huge amounts of space in the phone's memory? My available memory on my iPhone 6 went from 7.5GB to 4.4GB when I "upgraded" to 10. Initially my iTunes still showed I have 7+ GB when I pugged the phone in, so I thought if I synced, the phone would show the same. It didn't. Given that I use my phone for recording video interviews, I need to keep at least 5GB free, and preferably more. Is there an answer, Jeremy V? How can I get my space back that ios10 just stole from me?

Hi, i feel too there is some change in behaviour after ios10.

[I'm long-time tech user of iPhone and quite sure about it]

Before iOS10:

1. I'd connect my iphone via a USB to my PC.

2. go to my PC\*\Internal Storage\DCIM\100APPLE and move all the photos/videos to my PC harddrive

3. After doing above, when I go to iPhone Setting/General/Storage/Manage Storage/Photos&Camera - it would show "Photo Library" taking 0KB space

After iOS10, even after I perform the above steps (i.e.. have emptied PC\*\Internal Storage\DCIM*), the "Photo Library" still shows using 100s of MBs! 😟

So, we just lost a way to empty the iphone of all photos, and I'm having hard time reclaiming the space on iPhone.