My iPad is several years old and is one of those 68GB jobbies. I know that Apples GB hungry software eats into the capacity, along with those GB munching Apps. I like to store lots of photographs and had set up a few albums in the iPad photo App.
Please hang in there and stay with me, because trust me, this storyboard is worth the journey. So, hungry GB munching things; meant that it came as no surprise to see my iPad GB reduce to a miserly 186MB.
At this panic induced point, I decided to trawl through my Photo App and delete images that weren't needed. This meant sending quite a few to friends via Social Media so that the pics weren't lost for good, and making sure that my Dropbox was up to date. I also realised that any album created in the Photo App was just a duplication. So, other than one or two special albums (such as my 'artwork ideas' and 'art') the bulk of my albums got deleted, safe in the knowledge that my images were in 'Camera Roll' and in Dropbox. More importantly, there was no longer 2 of everything on my iPad. I also cleared out my 'recently deleted' album. Normally this clears itself out after 30 days have elapsed after an image is deleted, but I done it manually because I had just deleted a lot of stuff. I also turned off and restarted my iPad so that all of thes deletions were recognised.
This meant my 186MB panic system, increased to a nice 8.1GB
Which of course, those of you in the know, also know is good. And this story could have stopped there, but it doesn't.
You see, over the years the iPad hasn't been keeping up with my photo deletions. The difference between what the 'System Usage' and 'About' says that I have stored as photos, and what I actually have, differs by some 5,000 images. I have 2,000 something photos and an empty recently deleted album, and it says that I have 7,000 something images on the iPad. Well it did up until a few minutes ago. As of now I have an awesome 38.1GB available on my iPad. Yes, you read it correctly, 30GB more than a few minutes ago. How you ask? Well, simples actually;
Open your Photo App, go to 'recently deleted' and delete any images sat there
Close the Photo App
Now go to Settings and find 'Date and Time'
Deselect automatic
Take the date back 2 or 3 years (I went back 3 years)
Leave the 'Date and Time'
Open the Photo App and check the 'Recently Deleted' album
I found almost 5,000 images sat in mine although a few minutes earlier it was empty
Delete them and when done close the Photo App
Go back to settings and 'Date and Time' and set to automatic and then enjoy your iPad
. . . You're welcome