5

I have the latest iOS on my iPad and iPhone with the new Music app. I speculate the Music app's cache of downloaded streaming songs is taking about 1.5 to 2.0 GB of space, which is causing both of my devices to now report "storage almost full." This will be an issue in the future when I want to add a new app to the device. How do I clear this cache?

Some details. I activated iCloud Music Library on both devices since I'm trying out Apple Music. My iPad previously had no local audio files, but a few days after activating iCloud Music Library, the "Audio" usage on the iTunes app on OSX reported about 1.5 GB. The Music app does not show up on the iPad's General>Usage>Storage page, as there is no explicitly stored music.

My iPhone on the other hand had locally stored songs. The phone reports Music app's usage as 3.0 GB, while the iTunes app on OSX reports 4.98 GB.

EDIT: Auto music downloads are disabled on both devices

4 Answers 4

7

Easiest solution I have found so far is to disable the iCloud Music Library and open the Music app so that it can delete the cached files and/or release that storage to iOS to clear when needed.

Details: This solution is an adaptation of solutions I found for the same issue with iTunes Match. The clearing and rebuilding of your music library takes time, so I hope Apple adds a simple "clear Music cache" button to the settings in the future.

  1. Settings>Music: Turn off iCloud Music Library
  2. Open Music app: Your library should start to clear
  3. Settings>Music: Turn on iCloud Music Library
  4. Open Music app: Your library will be rebuilt

The process preserved my offline copies of songs previously synced to my iPhone prior to switching to the iCloud Music Library. I am not sure if it preserves offline Apple Music copies.

4
  • 1
    After step 2 I also logged out from the Music app, which caused even more memory to be released. Thanks for this simple solution! Let me mention, however, that after performing all those steps, about 200 tracks still remained in my iPad's memory, which I checked using iMaze, but I couldn't delete them. Jul 5, 2015 at 9:58
  • I noticed the free space on my iPhone immediately grew after step 1 Aug 24, 2015 at 10:13
  • Unfortunately this didn't work on my iPhone. Apple's contempt for their users is truly magnificent. Nov 15, 2015 at 1:28
  • For me, this solution is kind of a last resort. It has freed lots of space on my phone, but also deleted the list of music that I've added to "My Music", so I have to search for the albums again...
    – Lewen
    May 13, 2016 at 21:39
0

Actually, you can go onto iExplorer, click the Media tab, and delete the CloudAssets & LoFICloudAssets (I think), those two folders are where the Apple Music song caches are stored.

1
  • I tried this but it only cleared a couple of megabytes of space from my device. Apr 19, 2017 at 2:04
0

Ok everybody, there is a problem with the Music app, somehow my downloaded music just disappeared, then I had to re-download them, but the available space at the phone storage just filled up, didn't matter if I eliminated every single download.

Using iExplorer, founded a folder "Purchases" at media's tab and there was 2gb of downloaded music, unavailable to play at the Apple Music's app. After I eliminated those files, my "Others" used space just flushed.

enter image description here

1
  • I tried this but it only cleared a couple of megabytes of space from my device. Apr 19, 2017 at 2:04
0

I found that if I try and rent a movie from the iTunes Store that definitely won't fit on my device then it triggers a phone wide/app wide cache clear that can clear a GB or more of space.

I always pick one of the 99c movies to rent just in case I did end up renting it. To date I've never been charged for attempting to rent a movie that won't fit on my device.

Update: apparently it's better to try to download a large free app instead that won't fit and trigger a system wide cache clearance: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3967672/Running-space-iPhone-Download-HUGE-app-Simple-hack-tricks-handsets-providing-storage.html

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .