iPhone 6(S)/Plus With 96 GB available on my HD, why can't I restore a lousy 16 GB iPhone backup?

[Thomas Veil]

I'm trying to restore a backup of my wife's iPhone 6s. Her photos were unfortunately deleted, so I'd like to get them back.

I'm using iTunes to restore, but it goes through about a 25 minute process and when it gets down to the last 5 minutes it tells me it could not complete the task because there is not enough space on my hard drive.

The iPhone has 16 GB of memory. Currently I have 96 GB free on my iMac's hard drive, where the backup is stored. Why is it telling me I don't have enough space to restore? I don't get it.

 

[xboxbml]

Interesting.. how big is the backup?.. I use windows so not too familiar with Mac yet..

 

[Longkeg]

There’s more involved in an iTunes restore than just the 16gb on the phone. If it isn’t there already an iOS installer has to be downloaded and decompressed and held on the hard drive. The stored data may be copied and held in temporary folders several times during the process. All this goes on unnoticed under the hood and gets deleted once the restoration is finished. So it’s not inconceivable that a 16gb restoration would require 100gb or more of disk space.

 

[dojoman]

Maybe it’s the phone memory is almost full not your Mac HDD, OR you’re restoring wrong backup that had bigger than 16gb in size. I’d check how big the restore file is.

 

[rui no onna]

Maybe it’s the phone memory is almost full not your Mac HDD, OR you’re restoring wrong backup that had bigger than 16gb in size. I’d check how big the restore file is.

Yep.

Since OP is restoring and not backing up, seems like it's the iPhone's 16GB storage that's too small and not the Mac's.

 

[Thomas Veil]

Thanks for the suggestions.

I found the backup in the Finder. It's 8.12 GB. I did find out that a restore will require more space than that, but 90+ GB seems like plenty.

Further research showed "security" issues may be involved. Wish the websites that said that would explain it, but I'm going to try it again without virus protection, and making sure all read and write privileges are open.

Edit: I thought about the iPhone storage being too small as well, but the message states that there is not enough space on the hard drive. I suppose I could wipe out everything else on the phone in case that is indeed the problem, but I'm loath to do that yet.

Edit: I'm not dismissing the iPhone storage space suggestion, but this is the message I keep getting on my computer:

 

[rui no onna]

There’s more involved in an iTunes restore than just the 16gb on the phone. If it isn’t there already an iOS installer has to be downloaded and decompressed and held on the hard drive. The stored data may be copied and held in temporary folders several times during the process. All this goes on unnoticed under the hood and gets deleted once the restoration is finished. So it’s not inconceivable that a 16gb restoration would require 100gb or more of disk space.

Nah. That would be horrible coding if that's the case. For a 16GB iPhone, at most, it might need ~30-40GB. Certainly not 100GB.

 

[Thomas Veil]

Longkeg is right about one thing. Each (failed) attempt at a backup restoring adds another 8 GB or more to the place where mobile backups are stored: ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync. For example, in addition to the 10/10/17 backup I'm trying to restore, I now have a new backup below it as well, created just minutes ago.

This has the ironic function of lowering the amount of hard disk space it's asking for more of. Frankly, that strikes me as lousy design as well.

 

[akash.nu]

Longkeg is right about one thing. Each (failed) attempt at a backup adds another 8 GB or more to the place where mobile backups are stored: ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync. For example, in addition to the 10/10/17 backup I'm trying to restore, I now have a new backup below it as well, created just minutes ago.

View attachment 744773​

This has the ironic function of lowering the amount of hard disk space it's asking for more of. Frankly, that strikes me as lousy design as well.

This is done for versioning purposes. So that you can choose an earlier version of backup to restore rather than the latest one. Many people want that functionality and we’ve had moaning posts here as well because iCloud backup mechanism doesn’t offer this feature.

 

[Super Xander]

I’ve got problems before like that.
iTunes says disk is full even when there are 120gb back and iPhone storage are only filled to 60gb
Haven’t been able to find a solution yet.

 

[teeshot44]

Restart your PC and try the restore with only iTunes open. (make sure you're using the most current version). Many times other open programs as well as recently closed/used programs still have active files using memory and disk space that isn't reflected in available space that you see.

 

[dojoman]

If you have iPhone X with 256GB memory will you need 1TB on Mac to restore the phone? Makes no sense.

 

[Thomas Veil]

Correcting post #8. Each attempt at restoring adds more data (as in the illustration in post 8).

 

[seatton]

This has happened to mine too and I have not found a solution yet. Now, my iPad has to be backup via iCloud. When I get a new iPad, I am not sure how iCloud backup would work. I do not think after it is fully installed from the iCloud Backup, it will let me sync with the computer. Any thoughts?

 

[akash.nu]

This has happened to mine too and I have not found a solution yet. Now, my iPad has to be backup via iCloud. When I get a new iPad, I am not sure how iCloud backup would work. I do not think after it is fully installed from the iCloud Backup, it will let me sync with the computer. Any thoughts?

Why don’t you delete the older backups?

 

[seatton]

Why don’t you delete the older backups?

I do not have older backups. I have an iPad Pro and iPhone X and nowadays I can only backup my iPhone to my old MacBook. Both devices have been backup nightly with iCloud.

I do not know if somehow if somehow I have a new iPad, would it be possible to fully restored everything to the iPad using my iCloud backup and then resync my new music on iTunes.

 

[akash.nu]

I do not have older backups. I have an iPad Pro and iPhone X and nowadays I can only backup my iPhone to my old MacBook. Both devices have been backup nightly with iCloud.

I do not know if somehow if somehow I have a new iPad, would it be possible to fully restored everything to the iPad using my iCloud backup and then resync my new music on iTunes.

Yes that’s possible.