HOW TO FIX IPHONE STORAGE ALWAYS LOADING (NOT SHOWING UP)
iPhone Storage not loading
Are you trying to check the available space on your iOS device but iPhone Storage is not loading? The graph is stuck on ‘Calculating category sizes…’, while a spinning wheel is displayed in a loop instead of the list with the storage breakdown by the app? Results are not showing up no matter how long you wait?
How To Fix iPhone Storage Not Loading
This bug has been recently reported during the iOS better testingstages! Apply the following troubleshooting tips to get around the glitch:
1. Be Patient
We’ve managed to replicate the issue and the iPhone storage details showed up after around three minutes of staring at the spinning wheel. However, there’s is no guarantee that patience will bring the desired results. So, if you’re no willing to wait it out, proceed to the next option!
2. Force Quit Settings
Open the App Switcher (swipe up from the bottom of the screen or double-click the Home button on older iPhone models).
Swipe the Settings card up and dismiss it from the screen to force close the app.
Return to the Home Screen and relaunch Settings.
Browse for General -> iPhone Storage. Is it still not loading?
3. Reboot iPhone
The next option to fix iPhone Storage not showing is to force restart your device. A fresh iOS boot will flush minor glitches and should fix this issue.
How to: Click & release Volume Up followed by Volume Down. Next, press & hold the Side Button until the Apple logo is displayed on the screen. Release and be patient while the iPhone reboots. Provide your passcode and check if iPhone Storage loads without glitches!
4. Connect iPhone To Computer
If the problem persists grab your Lightning cable and plug your iPhone into your Mac or Windows computer. Syncing the smartphone with a computer should fix the iPhone storage bug. Does it? Use the comments section and let us know.
Other iPhone Storage Bugs
This iOS feature has been quite glitchy during the iOS 15 beta testing. Besides the always loading issue, iPhone Storage can fail and display results that are obviously not correct:
iPhone Storage Inaccurate Results
A Reddit user has posted a screenshot that shows the iPhone Storage app displaying Zero Kb of space used out of 64 GB available.
The graph seems to be accurate though and you can visually approximate how much free space there is left on the device.
Are you encountering the same problem? Use the comments section and let us know. We’re aiming to find out how to spread out the issue is.
Do you encounter other iPhone storage-related bugs? Don’t hesitate to let us know. We’re reporting all these problems via the Feedback app in an attempt to obtain a bug-free iPhone Storage section until the public iOS15 beta release, scheduled for this fall.
How to Reduce “System” Storage Size on iPhone or iPad
If you have ever visited the iOS Storage section of the Settings app on an iPhone or iPad, you may have noticed that the “System” storage section is occasionally quite large and can take up a significant amount of storage capacity. For extra-large storage capacity devices this may not be a big deal, but if you have “System” taking up 16GB of storage on a 32GB device then that is obviously a storage burden that is impinging on total device capacity, potentially preventing other uses of the device due to being unable to download apps, games, media, or other stuff to the device. Therefore, reducing a large “System” storage section of iOS devices could be desirable.
This tip will cover a somewhat quirky way to reduce the total size of “System” storage as found on the Storage settings of an iPad or iPhone.
Checking Current “System” Storage Size in iOS
Before going further, you might want to get an idea of how large your current “System” storage is before trying to reduce the capacity, this will give you a reference point to work with. You can check System storage size by doing the following:
Open the “Settings” app on the iPhone or iPad then go to “General”
Choose ‘iPhone Storage’ or ‘iPad Storage
Wait for the storage usage to calculate, then scroll all the way to the bottom of the Storage screen to find “System” and its total storage capacity consumption
“System” can be wildly different sizes, sometimes it’s 7 GB or so, but it can also easily be 10GB, 15GB, or even a whopping 25 GB or larger too, often even on the same device type. That seemingly random but significant storage usage makes “System” a bit like the “Other” storage which has long frustrated some users by consuming device storage in iOS.
Now that you know how large your “System” storage is from the start, let’s review the process that may help to reduce that storage size.
How to Shrink the “System” Storage on iPhone or iPad
To use this trick to shrink the “System” capacity size of your iPhone Storage or iPad Storage, you will need the iOS device, a computer with iTunes, and a USB cable to connect the device to the computer. If you have all of that, the rest is remarkably simple.
Open iTunes on the computer, it can be a Mac or Windows PC
Connect the USB cable to the computer, and then connect the iPhone or iPad to that USB cable
Unlock the iPhone or iPad by entering the device's passcode – if you have never connected it to the computer before you will need to “Trust” the computer when that pop-up shows up
Leave the iPhone or iPad connected to the computer with iTunes open for a few minutes, you do not need to sync or anything just let it sit
Launch the “Settings” app then go to “General” and to the “Storage” section of the device, scrolling all the way down to see “System”, it should have recalculated and often (but not always) reduced in size considerably
Disconnect the iPhone or iPad from the computer and USB cable and enjoy your new free storage space
Why this works isn’t entirely clear, but presumably, when you connect an iPhone or iPad to a computer and open iTunes, it performs some sort of maintenance or cleanup behavior that dumps caches and temp files from the iOS System section, perhaps in preparation for a backup to iTunes, and when finished it can free up a notable amount of storage capacity on the device.
In the screenshots shown here, I was able to free up over 5 GB of storage on an iPhone simply by plugging it into a computer with iTunes and letting it sit for two minutes while unlocked. On an iPad, I was able to free up 2 GB doing the same action.
This method is not guaranteed to work, however, and on an iPhone X with a whopping 25.6 GB system size, it only freed up less than 1 GB. Some users may report more dramatic changes in the size of “System” but there does not seem to be much rhyme or reason involved, if you have any hunches share them in the comments further below.
What is “System” storage anyway?
The “System” section of the iPhone or iPad Storage is likely quite literal, it’s the system software. That includes iOS itself, which is the core operating system running on the iPhone or iPad, including all system functions, system apps, and presumably other system components like caches, temp files, and other underpinnings of the iOS operating system.
The often randomly and widely varying storage consumption size of the “System” section of iOS Storage is sort of like the nebulous “Other” storage section of iOS devices, which is still listed in the Storage section of the Settings app, but it appears that “System” is now contained within the “Other” section.
Another option that consistently shrinks down iOS “System” storage is much more dramatic; erase the device, then reinstall iOS and restore from your backup. Obviously, that’s a significant undertaking, however, so that shouldn’t be the first resort for anyone. Similarly, restoring iOS will typically reduce the “Other” capacity as well on an iPhone or iPad.
General iOS Storage Tips
One of the biggest complaints iPhone and iPad users often have relates to inadequate storage space on their devices (along with iCloud, but that’s another topic) particularly on smaller storage size models with 16GB and 32GB capacities, but even with 64 GB, 128GB and 256 GB devices too, depending on how much stuff is on there.
If you’re trying to free up “System” storage space to reduce general storage usage on the iPhone or iPad, you may also be interested in learning how to remove and delete “Other” Storage on an iPhone or iPad, along with deleting “Documents & Data” from iOS apps. Other helpful tips for freeing up storage capacity on iOS devices include offloading apps from iOS that are unused, deleting apps that are unused, enabling automatic offloading of unused apps, and focusing on clearing “Documents & Data” from apps on the iPhone or iPad particularly with apps like Instagram which have large caches taking up storage on the iPhone.
Did this trick work for you to reduce your “System” storage space on an iPhone or iPad? Do you have any other helpful tricks to reduce curiously large System or Other storage capacities on iOS devices? Share your experiences in the comments below!
If you’re an iPhone user, check your storage now by selecting Settings, then General and then iPhone Storage.
You’ll probably see a lot of recognisable categories eating up your storage — apps, photos, and so on. But there is one, often rather large category, that may raise concerns: “Other”.
It’s shaded light grey and often represents a significant proportion of the overall storage available.
There is one, often rather large category, that often raises concerns: ‘other’.Author provided
What is ‘Other’?
For more detail, scroll down and tap the “Other” category (right at the end).
It doesn’t say much — just that it includes caches, logs and other resources in use by the system. Not very illuminating.
Get news that’s free, independent and based on evidence.
Not very illuminating.Author provided
Logs are records of actions undertaken on, or by, our phones. A phone may,
for example, log that it connected to a WiFi network, established a Bluetooth connection with a device, backed up some data or opened a web page. In most cases, the log files are simple records that do not occupy much space — often only a few megabytes.
Caches, however, can be a much greater problem for clogging up your “Other” storage.
When we stream media such as movies and music on an iPhone, the phone will download as much of the content as possible. One of the main reasons for this is to minimise the dreaded spinning wheel you see when content is buffering.
Nobody wants to see the buffering wheel spin.Author provided
All this content (referred to as a “cache”) needs to be stored somewhere and
it rapidly fills up your device.
This cached content extends to a wide range of applications including your web browser (such as Safari, Chrome or Firefox) and apps like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and TikTok.
Why is it taking up so much space?
While cached data may not seem to need much space, it is surprising how large streamed media content can be – not to mention the image-rich social media apps we love so much.
Looking through the list of apps and their storage allocations will quickly
show how storage is being consumed. In this screenshot above, for example, you can see Facebook is consuming 2.17 gigabytes.
However, if we look on the App store, it says the Facebook app only requires 255.4 megabytes. So somehow the app is occupying an additional 1.9GB. Where is this extra 1.9GB coming from? It’s likely caches of images, videos and other content your phone had to store in it’s own memory storage so you could scroll through Facebook without encountering the dreaded “buffering” spinning wheel.
This process will remove most of the “Other” storage being used on your iPhone, but takes a bit of time and effort.
How can I stop it getting so large in the future?
Unfortunately, cached files will be recreated with most common iPhone usage. But there are some things you can do to reduce storage consumption.
If you’re not keen to reset, try exploring the apps using up cache space on your iPhone.
Social media apps are a good starting point as they often cache lots of images and videos. While most don’t provide an option to delete their cached data, removing and reinstalling the app will remove all cache files.
Another likely culprit is your web browser (typically Safari on most iPhones).
From the Settings menu, scroll down to Safari and select “Clear History and Website Data”. This will remove most cached data associated with your web browser.
If you’re using another browser, such as Chrome or Firefox, repeat the steps with that browser in Settings.
From the Settings menu, scroll down to Safari and select ‘Clear History and Website Data’Author provided
Great. Any other iPhone storage tips and tricks?
If you want to keep going, consider removing old SMS and iMessages.
Standard written text messages occupy minimal storage, but photos and videos shared between family and friends can consume significant storage over time.
Under Settings, scroll down to Messages, then to the Message History option.
The default is to keep messages “forever”. Changing this to a shorter duration can reduce space requirements considerably.
The default is to keep messages ‘forever’. Changing this to a shorter duration can reduce space requirements considerably. Author provided
A final option is to consider offloading apps. Modern iPhones let you remove infrequently used apps. While this will not necessarily reduce your use of cache storage, it can free up valuable space.
A final option is to consider offloading apps.Author provided
There is no simple solution to managing iPhone storage usage. Minimising photos and videos will help, but there is a lot of space allocated to apps and their cached data.
But with careful tending, we can try to keep on top of unexpected storage usage without having to wipe our devices.
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