iPad Major storage issue- 32gb iPad brand new no space

[Whitney Borchers]

First off I want to say that I’m not very savvy with all of this so please speak in terms an idiot could understand lol. So I bought an iPad about 3 weeks ago. It’s a 7th generation 32gb. Looking back, I wish I wouldn’t have bought a 32gb...I already know I’d like more storage than that. But whatever. So here’s the deal, pretty much from day one, I’ve had issues with having no space. I have literally deleted everything that I possibly can. I don’t use iTunes, I don’t use messages or messenger or any of that, I don’t have photos or music on here, I don’t have anything on here. I’ve offloaded everything I could, I have one game, YouTube, chrome, Pinterest instagram, Amazon, google, and procreate. That’s literally it. I can’t do ANYTHING on this iPad because it keeps saying I have no space. Now the email app isn’t even letting me send emails. The only thing I really use this iPad for is procreate. All of the artwork I have made, I have sent to my iCloud storage, so it wouldn’t take up room on my iPad. Yet I still have zero room.im losing my mind. I don’t want to factory reset but this iPad is practically useless. I really need some help please!

 

[Puonti]

If you tap on "On My iPad" (see first screenshot), can you provide a screenshot of what's listed there?

 

[ApfelKuchen]

Did you transfer data from another iPad?

You have nearly 15 GB in On My iPad - this is data that is stored on the iPad by certain apps that is not synced to iCloud - it could be in the Files app, Notes, or Contacts, among others. Have you tapped on that item to see if there are any details shown?

Your screen shots don't include the very bottom of the iPad Storage list - right below System there should be Other. Based on the bar graph at the top of the page it appears Other is about 7-8 GB. That's not too bad, but it could be better. If you haven't already updated to 13.6.1, do that, as it includes a fix for an issue that was creating excessive Other.

 

[Whitney Borchers]

If you tap on "On My iPad" (see first screenshot), can you provide a screenshot of what's listed there?

 

[stanza.richi]

Try to reset it and set as new ipad. on my pro, I use 42 gb of 64 and I have 15 gb of music and pdf saved!

 

[Whitney Borchers]

Try to reset it and set as new ipad. on my pro, I use 42 gb of 64 and I have 15 gb of music and pdf saved!

What does that man and how do I do that?

 

[Puonti]

@Whitney Borchers Do you happen to have the Procreate Timelapse Video setting on in any / all of the images you've been working on? If yes, try turning it off for all of your images (you'll naturally lose timelapse videos of your art, so if you want to keep them export those videos first).

 

[AutomaticApple]

First off I want to say that I’m not very savvy with all of this so please speak in terms an idiot could understand lol. So I bought an iPad about 3 weeks ago. It’s a 7th generation 32gb. Looking back, I wish I wouldn’t have bought a 32gb...I already know I’d like more storage than that. But whatever. So here’s the deal, pretty much from day one, I’ve had issues with having no space. I have literally deleted everything that I possibly can. I don’t use iTunes, I don’t use messages or messenger or any of that, I don’t have photos or music on here, I don’t have anything on here. I’ve offloaded everything I could, I have one game, YouTube, chrome, Pinterest instagram, Amazon, google, and procreate. That’s literally it. I can’t do ANYTHING on this iPad because it keeps saying I have no space. Now the email app isn’t even letting me send emails. The only thing I really use this iPad for is procreate. All of the artwork I have made, I have sent to my iCloud storage, so it wouldn’t take up room on my iPad. Yet I still have zero room.im losing my mind. I don’t want to factory reset but this iPad is practically useless. I really need some help please!

Update to iPadOS 13.6.1. It fixes the storage bug issues.

 

[ericwn]

Looks like this stuff stored on the iPad belongs to Procreate. Not sure how essential that is. In the medium to long run I’d get a better suited iPad for these creative tasks. Consider 128 GB as the minimum for content creators, more us8ally better.

 

[ericwn]

Update to iPadOS 13.6.1. It fixes the storage bug issues.

Where do you see a storage bug issue on the screenshots provided?

 

[AutomaticApple]

Where do you see a storage bug issue on the screenshots provided?

The excessive amount of "other"?

 

[ericwn]

The excessive amount of "other"?

Let’s hope that improves things. Looks like a quarter of the storage taken by this. Not that the result would free up much though, so very soon this situation may reoccur due to insufficient storage space.

 

[ApfelKuchen]

The excessive amount of "other"?

7-8 GB of Other is not necessarily "excessive," although it could be lower. "Excessive" in terms of the bug fix in 13.6.1 was for people who had 20 GB, 30 GB, or even more Other - they could delete all sorts of other stuff and Other would quickly expand to take over the newly-cleared space.

Other is mostly cache (temporary "scratchpad" storage), and sometimes caches don't auto-clean when they're supposed to - that failure to auto-clean requires bug fixes. However, Other can legitimately get fairly large (one classic example is during heavy iCloud Photos upload/download activity) - the trick is whether it gets smaller again once that temporary job is done.

It's not clear to me whether Other is excessive in this particular case, or a function of normal activity. The OP did mention that all Procreate documents are being stored in iCloud, so there's potentially a fair amount of regular upload/download activity due to that. Maybe the 13.6.1 update will improve the situation, maybe there's no problem to be fixed. Since it doesn't hurt to update to 13.6.1, it seems worth a try.

Now that we know that Procreate brushes and fonts account for over 14 GB (double the space taken by Other), I think that's the place to look. 230 brushes? 38 fonts? While it's nice to have useful tools, it's hard to believe that most of those will be used more than once (and that one-time-use being "trying it out" and deciding it's not useful).

Sure, with even a 64 GB iPad, 14 GB for such things is not so difficult to manage, but on a 32 GB machine.... I remember the early days of graphical computing when some people loaded their systems down with huge libraries of never-used fonts. It wasn't at all unusual to target fonts as a way to free-up space on cramped hard drives. However, as HDs got larger and larger and huge font libraries lost their allure, "delete some fonts" is no longer commonly-heard advice. But like they say, "Everything old is new again."