Major Storage Bug After iOS 26 Update — Losing Dozens of GB for No Reason

Ever since updating to iOS 26, my phone has been almost unusable due to storage issues that didn’t exist before. I had over 17 GB free just to install the update, and immediately afterward, my available storage dropped to less than 1 GB without adding anything new.

I’ve tried everything to free up space:

Uploaded almost all videos to Google Photos and deleted them from my device
Deleted multiple large apps
Removed nearly all offline music from Apple Music

Even after all that, no storage is being freed up. My phone acts like the deleted space doesn’t exist. What’s even more frustrating is that “System Data” alone is taking up over 32 GB, which is a massive portion of my total storage and seems to be constantly increasing.

Because of this, I can’t record videos, download photos, install updates, or even send files without getting storage warnings. My phone has become nearly impossible to use for normal daily tasks.

This clearly seems like a major storage management bug in iOS 26, and it needs to be addressed. Please fix this in the next patch, users shouldn’t lose a quarter of their device’s storage just for updating the system.

iPhone 15, iOS 26

Posted on Oct 29, 2025 3:25 PM

Top-ranking reply

Jeff Donald

Level 8

44,700 points

Posted on Oct 29, 2025 3:31 PM

To resolve this issue, you can backup to a Mac and then erase your iphone and restore from the backup. If you don’t have access to a computer (it can be done on windows too), backup your iphone to iCloud, erase your device and then restore from your iCloud backup.

Restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch from a backup - Apple Support

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21 replies

Nov 25, 2025 6:50 AM in response to pickleprincess

Why should we have to back up and erase all contents and data. Why can't Apple just resolve this issue in one of their updates, perhaps maybe iOS 26.2? This is "System Data" bloating our devices after all. I don't see why we need lose our data off devices we use everyday. This is on Apple to fix

Nov 25, 2025 2:14 PM in response to LD150

I am having a similar issue. I have never had iCloud enabled for photos, I have deleted every deletable app on the phone. Thousands of pictures are missing from Photos, and no indexing works all albums have ceased to exist including Apple created photo albums not just my own

Nov 22, 2025 11:32 AM in response to pickleprincess

I have this problem too try to get more storage but no I don’t know why it keeps happening on Amazon Music! Hope it’s get solved and fix! Soon!

Dec 15, 2025 7:09 AM in response to JerBear61

Did it work?

Nov 22, 2025 11:33 AM in response to cassidy234

Especially the update 26.1

Nov 22, 2025 4:11 PM in response to pickleprincess

for me, i deleted the ios map app. it will just keep filling up all your empty space,

[Edited by Moderator]

Major Storage Bug After iOS 26 Update — Losing Dozens of GB for No Reason