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I'm puzzled by what iTunes is reporting about my iPhone's memory usage:

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Clearly this doesn't quite add up, and it's hard to manage my memory use without having an accurate summary of what's really going on.

What could be causing this and how might I fix it?

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Which part is correct? Is the amount of data used correct, and it should be telling you Free is ~6GB instead of 36? – Dan J Dec 1 '11 at 22:25
That's part of the problem: I don't know. – raxacoricofallapatorius Dec 1 '11 at 22:32
What version of iOS are you running? On any version, go to Settings -> General -> About to see the phone's breakdown of how much media you've got. And on 5.0+, go to Settings -> General -> Usage for a detailed breakdown of storage used per app. Hopefully the phone's own stats will provide some guidance. – Dan J Dec 1 '11 at 23:51
The Free amount is wrong. – raxacoricofallapatorius Dec 1 '11 at 23:52
Do you mean it differs in iTunes from what you see on the phone? – Dan J Dec 1 '11 at 23:55
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1 Answer

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Given the clarifications in the comments, it sounds like iTunes is mis-reporting the free space on the phone.

Unfortunately, this may be an as-yet-unresolved bug in iTunes: there seem to be a heap of threads on discussions.apple.com describing this problem, with even recent posts lacking resolution. Here are two of them:

https://discussions.apple.com/message/16756343#16756343

https://discussions.apple.com/message/12869025#12869025

It may be worth watching those threads to see if there's a resolution - hopefully, if the bug's well-known by now, an upcoming iTunes version will fix it.

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FWIW, I can get correct reporting in iTunes by terminating all running apps on the phone. – raxacoricofallapatorius Dec 2 '11 at 0:01

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