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My iPad has 78GB of empty space. I have no problem whatsoever adding videos or anything like that.
However, when I sync, I get a storage warning every time:
There's nothing in the Trash, and otherwise, there doesn't seem to be a problem. iTunes' storage bar shows plenty of space remaining:
What is this warning, and how do I get rid of it?
Thanks!
iMac with Retina 5K display, iOS 10.3.2, null
First, thanks for the link to OmniDiskSweeper. It allowed me to get rid of a particularly pesky file.
However, I'm not sure your explanation is correct. I have plenty of empty HD space:
I have plenty of empty space on my iPad and hard drives - but iTunes still comes out with the error shown above.
I did a "Command-I" on my Disk, and the size is about the same as my Spotlight search:
All my my utilities say the same thing: my HD space is somewhere between 678GB and 680GB. OmniDiskSweeper says 672GB. Spotlight says 680GB - and that's after rebuilding it.
There's one solution that we haven't considered: that there's a non-critical error on my iPad. And there's one way to eliminate this type of error: to erase and reinstall my iPad's library. This kind of thing happens every once in a while on iOS devices.
That storage dialog is often wrong.
What does Finder say about your disk? Select the disk & use File > Get info, check the space there.
What does Omnidisksweeper say about your disk?
That 'Storage bar' chart is generated from Spotlight data and can often get out of sync and display information that is plain wrong. You can reindex spotlight if you think it disagrees with the Finder & other tools that actually read free space correctly.
How to rebuild the Spotlight index on your Mac - Apple Support
Perhaps iTunes is the app that is wrong here but in my experience the 'Storage' overview is normally unreliable.
Empty the trash, reboot the Mac, reindex the disk & check the other tools for space listings.
NOTE: even the tools like Finder & Omnidisksweeper will hide info about directories that you do not have permission to view, but they are better than the storage bar graph.
Read the warning…
…because there is not enough free space on this computer…
Your Mac has too much data on it to store the data from the iPad.
The bar in your image is the storage on the iPad, not the Mac.
You need to examine files on the Mac & remove them to free up some space. These apps can find areas that contain large amounts of data, you only need one app…
https://www.omnigroup.com/more
http://grandperspectiv.sourceforge.net/
These may give you ideas to clean up space…
http://thexlab.com/faqs/freeingspace.html
http://guides.macrumors.com/Freeing_Up_Hard_Disk_Space
If you need help post back - avoid deleting items you are unsure about otherwise you may break things you need.
Backup everything before you begin.
Lets be thorough before you delete your data (data that iTunes is refusing to backup).
iTunes backups should be stored within a folder inside your user account…
~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/
Try opening that location via 'Finder > Go > Go folder…', enter that entire path & hit return.
Get info on the Backup folder and double check that location is contained where you think it should be - the path should be inside /Macintosh HD/Users/USERNAME/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/
Do you also have read & write access to that folder?
You can erase the iPad if you think that is the issue, however I'm concerned that you are deleting data that may be important to you. An iCloud backup should allow you to restore the data if you can stand waiting for it to upload & download.
Personally I'd also contemplate creating a new user account (System Preferences > Users & groups) & backing up the device to that new user via iTunes - that would indicate your user account is flawed in some way.
Obviously if you haven't done so already, reboot just in case 🙂
Also consider booting into recovery mode to verify the disk in Disk Utility. It may seem like overkill but size errors can sometimes mask failing hardware errors.
The interesting thing about this is that iTunes isn't refusing to backup. Syncing and backup happen pretty much the way they always have...except for one thing: three steps in the sync, I get that "iTunes could not back up..." message. Once I click "okay" on the message, iOS continues backing up as usual, and installs/uninstalls data as required.
In fact, the only problem (as far as I can see) is that the aforementioned caution happens.
The safest solution, I suspect, is to follow your advice to boot into Recovery Mode, perform Disk Utility, and reboot.
If that doesn't fix things, I can delete and reinstall the iPad portion of my iTunes document - so I get a bug-free process.
Finally, it's solved.
I called Apple Support, and an experienced phone tech led me through the process - which involved setting up my iPad as a new iPad. Once synced, it's working fine now.
eek, turns out you were right, sorry you should have just ignored my caution & just nuked it.
I'm glad you sorted it.
"Not enough space" error message
