iPhone Storage Doesn’t Shrink After Deleting Videos

[sanpablo651]

I just received my iPhone 13. So to speed up the “new iPhone ” setup process and decrease the size of my backup, I started deleting large files on my iPhone 12.

in Settings > iPhone Storage > DJI Fly was about 60GB. So I opened the Fly app, went to Album (cached videos/not downloaded), identified the largest video files that were confirmed to be safely stored elsewhere, and deleted about 20GB of videos.

Then I deleted some other random apps/photos/music/podcasts too. That freed up a lot of space. But when I returned to Settings > iPhone Storage > DJI Fly, the app was still using 60GB. It seemed to be the only app not responding to file deletion. So I deleted a few more DJI videos, power cycled the iPhone, and backed it up to iCloud manually. Power cycled again etc.

it seems no matter how many videos I delete in the app, I can’t decrease the amount of space it takes up on my iPhone 12. I have plenty of space so it’s not the end of the world, but I’m confused as to why I cannot decrease the amount of storage the app uses regardless of how many videos I delete (batch trash/individually trash etc). Nothing seems to work. I can try clear cache but shouldn’t “delete” work as expected? Anyone ever experienced this? I’m a DJI noob so sorry if this has been addressed already.

thanks

 

[dirkclod]

Try going into deleted photo file and delete them there.

 

[66427cobra]

I just received my iPhone 13. So to speed up the “new iPhone ” setup process and decrease the size of my backup, I started deleting large files on my iPhone 12.

in Settings > iPhone Storage > DJI Fly was about 60GB. So I opened the Fly app, went to Album (cached videos/not downloaded), identified the largest video files that were confirmed to be safely stored elsewhere, and deleted about 20GB of videos.

Then I deleted some other random apps/photos/music/podcasts too. That freed up a lot of space. But when I returned to Settings > iPhone Storage > DJI Fly, the app was still using 60GB. It seemed to be the only app not responding to file deletion. So I deleted a few more DJI videos, power cycled the iPhone, and backed it up to iCloud manually. Power cycled again etc.

it seems no matter how many videos I delete in the app, I can’t decrease the amount of space it takes up on my iPhone 12. I have plenty of space so it’s not the end of the world, but I’m confused as to why I cannot decrease the amount of storage the app uses regardless of how many videos I delete (batch trash/individually trash etc). Nothing seems to work. I can try clear cache but shouldn’t “delete” work as expected? Anyone ever experienced this? I’m a DJI noob so sorry if this has been addressed already.

thanks

Sorry if this is a silly question but did you try turning the phone off and on?

 

[Jam0ne]

Sorry if this is a silly question but did you try turning the phone off and on?

I took to the belief that the OP saying, "Power cycled again etc." was just that, meant turning the phone OFF and ON...

 

[Mark_Y]

following

 

[sanpablo651]

Try going into deleted photo file and delete them there.

Thanks for the reply. Reporting back…

I definitely tried that. My trash in the Photos app was empty. So I could find no remnant of the deleted files. Anywhere on the iPhone 12.

Because I had plenty of space, I just proceeded with setting up the new iPhone 13. This is where it got interesting. After restoring, the iPhone 13 now showed the DJI app as using only 20GB of storage. So apparently the deleting was technically working, as it did not reappear on the new device, but it still remains at 60GB on the old device. Weird.

I’m assuming it’s a strange bug? If I were advising someone else who was switching devices, I’d tell them to proceed, and then compare the numbers on each device after restoring is complete. Then, be more proactive in your file management going forward, which is what I’ll be doing.

What I intend to do… I’m going to zero out the iPhone 13 and start from scratch. Maybe delete the app and reinstall it etc, just to make sure it’s at zero. Then film a little, and delete it right away to see if it was a one time bug, or if it persists.

Thanks again

 

[sanpablo651]

Sorry if this is a silly question but did you try turning the phone off and on?

I did. Thanks. I know power cycling is technically something else, but powering off and on, and on and off, is what I meant to say. I should have been more clear.

 

[sanpablo651]

I took to the belief that the OP saying, "Power cycled again etc." was just that, meant turning the phone OFF and ON...

This. Yes. Thanks. I think some consider power cycling a device and rebooting a device to be different but they’ve become synonymous in my brain somehow.

 

[novas]

I just received my iPhone 13. So to speed up the “new iPhone ” setup process and decrease the size of my backup, I started deleting large files on my iPhone 12.

in Settings > iPhone Storage > DJI Fly was about 60GB. So I opened the Fly app, went to Album (cached videos/not downloaded), identified the largest video files that were confirmed to be safely stored elsewhere, and deleted about 20GB of videos.

Then I deleted some other random apps/photos/music/podcasts too. That freed up a lot of space. But when I returned to Settings > iPhone Storage > DJI Fly, the app was still using 60GB. It seemed to be the only app not responding to file deletion. So I deleted a few more DJI videos, power cycled the iPhone, and backed it up to iCloud manually. Power cycled again etc.

it seems no matter how many videos I delete in the app, I can’t decrease the amount of space it takes up on my iPhone 12. I have plenty of space so it’s not the end of the world, but I’m confused as to why I cannot decrease the amount of storage the app uses regardless of how many videos I delete (batch trash/individually trash etc). Nothing seems to work. I can try clear cache but shouldn’t “delete” work as expected? Anyone ever experienced this? I’m a DJI noob so sorry if this has been addressed already.

thanks

I just noticed the same thing here. I had deleted large batches of images but wasn’t freeing up space on my IPhone 12. I had just installed ios 15 and it lets you “offload” an app while keeping the data, then reinstall it. It freed 40gb for me.

 

[maelstrom]

I had just installed ios 15 and it lets you “offload” an app while keeping the data, then reinstall it. It freed 40gb for me.

This feature is not new iOS 15.

 

[DoomMeister]

The offloading of an app should only free the memory the app itself was taking up, not any of the data. You should see a memory gain while it is offloaded, but once it is restored the memory use should be the same as before the offloading.

From the description given by the OP after transferring data to the new iPhone 13 and it showing the 40GB difference for the data he deleted on the iPhone 12. I’m thinking this may be a bug in the Settings app on the iPhones as I have seen similar with other program on my iPhones. I think the memory gets freed up, but fails to report it. It may be looking at the amount of data stored in the cloud backup.

This would be a good issue to bring up with Apple support!

 

[dirkclod]

I clean all my cashe in app weekly as I use an iPad and dump my card everytime I fly. When I download a new update I just don’t
delete off my device but go in itunes and delete it there also. Then I download the new update. Is a pain I know but have never had any issues. This is something I’ve done for years. Might not be what
is needed here but is what I’ve always done. Before the Mavic every cam out. Old habits are hard to break.

 

[66427cobra]

Sorry if I missed it in this thread but have you tried deleting the DJI Fly app from your phone? Since you verified that videos you want to keep are stored elsewhere, you should be safe.

You can do a clean install of DJI Fly on both your old iPhone 12 and new iPhone 13.

 

[dirkclod]

Right after you delete it from iTunes.
Completely delete it.

 

[DDrury]

The offloading of an app should only free the memory the app itself was taking up, not any of the data. You should see a memory gain while it is offloaded, but once it is restored the memory use should be the same as before the offloading.

From the description given by the OP after transferring data to the new iPhone 13 and it showing the 40GB difference for the data he deleted on the iPhone 12. I’m thinking this may be a bug in the Settings app on the iPhones as I have seen similar with other program on my iPhones. I think the memory gets freed up, but fails to report it. It may be looking at the amount of data stored in the cloud backup.

This would be a good issue to bring up with Apple support

Hello,

I am new to this forum but am having this problem of the Documents & Data storage not decreasing after deleting video files from the DJI Fly app. I have powered off and on my iPhone to clean up the trashed files several times to no avail. I then tried offloading the DJI app (General->iphone storage->DJI Fly->Offload App) and reloading it. The Documents & Data storage fell from 55 GB to 28.24 GB, which although much better, is still excessive. I repeated this process again but the Documents & Data remain at just over 28 GB. Thoughts?Thank you!