General iCloud storage doesn’t add up

[getrealbro]

Since updating to iOS 9, my iCloud storage doesn’t add up. Specifically, on all of my iToys running iOS 9.1 (iPad Mini/iPhone 6s/iPhone 5s) settings for iCloud>Storage>Manage Storage shows I have 2 Backups for a total of 752MB, app data using 93MB and Mail using 68.8MB = for a total of less than 1GB. Yet it says I only have 658MB left in my 5GB plan.

This list of less than 1GB of iCloud usage, but only 658MB of 5GB free, is consistent on my MBP running 10.11.1 which handily has a graph showing that I have over 4GB of “Backups”. And iCloud (web) agrees with a specific figure of 4.19GB of “Backup”. So where did the other 3+GB go?

Here’s my guess….
The iCloud settings in iOS 9.1 and OS X 10.11.1 are not showing the backups prior to upgrading to iOS 9. For example until a few months ago I had an iPhone 3g running iOS 6.x being backed up and the iPad/iPhone 5s had been backed up when running iOS 7.x. So where are these backups? And how do I delete them?

— GetReal Bro

 

[bcave098]

You can't access the pre-iOS 9 backups from iOS 9. I'm not sure how you can delete them short of using a pre-iOS 9 device.

 

[iphonedude2008]

Are you sure you can't just disable and delete backups for all your devices, then reenable backups? That's still weird since mine perfectly add up on the device settings.

 

[Mlrollin91]

If you believe you have phantom backups, contact Apple support. They have the ability to delete them off your iCloud account. They did it for me and others on the forums that have experienced the phantom backups.

 

[iphonedude2008]

If you believe you have phantom backups, contact Apple support. They have the ability to delete them off your iCloud account. They did it for me and others on the forums that have experienced the phantom backups.

Thats good to know. I had no idea phantom backups were such an issue. You'd think Apple would have fixed that by now.

 

[Mlrollin91]

Thats good to know. I had no idea phantom backups were such an issue. You'd think Apple would have fixed that by now.

It's a bug when upgrading from iOS 8 to iOS 9. As a previous poster mentioned. Pre iOS 9 backups aren't visible on El Cap or iOS 9 devices.

 

[getrealbro]

It's a bug when upgrading from iOS 8 to iOS 9. As a previous poster mentioned. Pre iOS 9 backups aren't visible on El Cap or iOS 9 devices.

And they are not visible on our iMac when running Mavericks either. In my case the upgrade was from iOS 7 -> 9 and Mavericks -> El Cap.

Thanks for the tip about phantom backups. I'll contact Apple Support later today and report back.

---GetRealBro

 

[getrealbro]

“So where are these backups? And how do I delete them?”

Apple Support was a great help in answering these two questions. The main thing they did was tell me WHAT was taking up the 3+GB of storage. And WHERE to go to fix it myself.

WHAT -- The missing 3+GB of iCloud storage space was being taken up by a failed backup of the iPad Mini just after I upgraded it from iOS 7.1.2 -> 9.1. In the process of the upgrade the backup settings for the iPad had been changed back to Apple’s default — i.e. backing up the Photos. Well this little iPad has over 10GB of photos. So when the backup hit the storage limit it failed. But here’s the rub. It didn’t release the storage. And it did not list the failed backup in the iCloud>Manage Storage info on any of my other Macs or iDevices.

WHERE -- When I looked on the iPad Mini it was in that iCloud>Manage Storage list. But it showed as 0 bytes. Since I now knew that it was really 3+GB, I deleted that backup and turned off Photos for the next iCloud backup. Once I deleted the 0 bytes of iPad Mini backup…. 3+GB of available iCloud space reappeared

— GetRealBro

p.s. In the course of the discussion Apple Support said the the backup storage system had changed with iOS 9. And that backups made using previous versions of iOS do not count against the iCloud storage plan.