Excess storage on IOS

[Laurent S]

I’m quite surprised..
I have a 557 Mo datatabase on my Mac, with a nearby sync with my IOS devices (Ipad and iphone) when I Tap Settings > General > Storage & iCloud Usage > Manage Storage :
Tap forms is 1,1 Go ???

I checked there is no backup files or migration file

Do you have the same issue ?
Thanks for your reply

[Brendan]

Tap Forms 5 no longer uses iCloud for storage. That may be left over from the previous version. So if you still have the old version of Tap Forms installed, then it’s using that storage, not the new version.

[Leo]

Hi Brendan,

on my iPhone TF uses also 1,8 GB, there is no old version on it.
Database is about 250 MB

[Brendan]

Check the name of the storage container. Is it Tap Forms Organizer 5? Or is it the old one?

[Leo]

Tap Forms 5.02

[Laurent S]

This subject has nothing to do with icloud
In the settings
Settings > General > Storage & iCloud Usage > Manage Storage
You can check, you have 2 distincts items :
Storage and icloud
We are talking about storage (internal memory of the device) not icloud.

Glad to see that I’m not alone :(

[Stuart]

I see similar issues. I have a Tap Forms 5.0.1 and the older 4.0.7 versions installed. I don’t have any documents/databases in the new version yet and haven’t migrated. I also deleted the sample forms and “My Life” form from Tap Forms 5.0.1 yet it shows as utilising 170MB of local device storage on my iPad Air 2. The older Tap Forms 4 which contains my 3 forms and 100s of records is only utilising 36MB.

[pmtsc]

This is not an issue on iOS restricted only to TF v5 I also noted very large file storage space on my iPhone 6s. for v4 and v5. When I deleted TF v4 off my phone it was the largest user of space at 7GB and v5 currently sits at 5.3Gb which is larger than all my photos combined.
I have always accepted this as I have one database that is a journal that has a lot of small images so thought this was the cause.
With separate documents available in TF v5 I introduced the various databases in steps leaving the journal to last, the amount of storage was still significant even before all databases were setup.
TF is miles ahead of any other app on iOS on my phone for taking a lot of space.
BRENDON, if you consider this an issue I’m happy to provide anything from my phone or TF that may help you. Thanks

[Brendan]

Ok, sorry about that. I misunderstood and I’ll look into this.

It may be an issue with generating thumbnails or left over files from the migration. I’ll investigate this.

[Brendan]

I’ve added some code to delete any junk in the tmp folder and also to delete the migration folder which was accidentally left around. I actually had code to remove it, but unfortunately Tap Forms was looking in the wrong spot for the folder to remove it after the migration completed. It will clean this up automatically after the next update. It will clear out any temp files each time the application is launched (from not being in memory yet).

[pmtsc]

Thanks

[Brendan]

If anyone wants to try out a beta version to see if this corrects your storage issue, please email me at support@tapforms.com.

[Alan Tribe]

I don’t know if this is related, but using the compact database tool increases the database size from around 24.0MB to 35.1MB.

At some point, the given database size reverts to the smaller figure, but using the tool then increases it again.

I also have the iPhone excess storage size issues noted above.

[Brendan]

Hi Alan,

Download the latest version for iOS and it will clear out any excess left over files in the app’s temp folder and possibly left around migration files that weren’t cleared after migration.

Ya, the database file size does increase sometimes. If you’ve done lots of deletions and had lots of attachments, then that will definitely reduce the size of the database. I wouldn’t worry about that too much. It’s just Couchbase Lite (the database engine I’m using) doing that. All Tap Forms does is issues a “compact” command to the database and it does the rest. So that temporary expansion is out of my control.

[Alan Tribe]

I have version 5.0.2 (531). I can’t see a later one on iTunes?

[Brendan]

5.0.2 is the latest for iOS. Alan, how much local storage is Tap Forms consuming?

[Alan Tribe]

Tap Forms 229MB
Documents & Data 185MB

The TF maintenance tool says the database size is 20.2MB – although when I compacted it, it went up to 35.1MB. :)

[Alan Tribe]

Is the 229MB excessive, and if it is can I do anything about it?

[Alan Tribe]

I’m still not sure if this is excessive or normal.

[Brendan]

I’m not really sure why it’s using that extra storage. It could be thumbnails that get generated if you have lots of photos.

You could try using an app like iExplorer from Macroplant to investigate what files are being stored. The latest update of Tap Forms removed some cache files and anything left over in the temporary folder upon app startup. Tap Forms 5 also doesn’t use the Documents & Data in the iCloud storage area anymore.

[Alan Tribe]

I only have about twenty photos.

I’ll investigate iExplorer.

Many thanks.

[Alan Tribe]

I downloaded iExplorer, but it doesn’t do anything that helps me. It doesn’t allow me to explore the local storage on my iPhone.

If I use it to look at a downloaded backup, it shows three db.sqlite documents and a folder of attachments. I can open these with a text editor but don’t understand the contents.

What am I meant to be doing?

My use of Tap Forms is quite straightforward. I only have it on my phone, so no syncing or need for IBM storage. Periodically, I create manual backups which I send to Dropbox.

A large part of my database was transferred in csv form because the migration feature failed.

I’m not technically expert so I don’t know what is relevant, but I’d certainly like to lower the size of Tap Forms on my phone.

[Brendan]

Hi Alan,

What you want to do is navigate in the Apps area in iExplorer, then find Tap Forms and navigate into it. From there you should see the .tapforms documents and possibly some backup files if you’ve been creating them. Even if you upload them to Dropbox, they’re still on your device unless you explicitly delete them after.

Maybe send me a screenshot from iExplorer so I can see what you’re doing. You can email them to support@tapforms.com.

[Alan Tribe]

iExplorer doesn’t show me anything on my device.

It opens on ‘Documents’ and shows me three folders:

Dropbox – which is a link to my Dropbox
Downloads – which is empty
Exp – which is empty

Apart from that, it just allows me to create new files, folders, etc., and to import from cloud services.

[Alan Tribe]

Ah, I see there’s a version for Windows…

I never connect my device to a computer so assumed you meant the iExplorer phone app. I’ll have a go with the Windows version.

[Alan Tribe]

OK – now that the penny has dropped, I have sent some screenshots.

[Alan Tribe]

Problem resolved. Tap Forms was retaining a number of old version backups which weren’t visible so couldn’t be deleted. They have now been deleted remotely using iExplorer and IOS storage has halved.

Thank you, Brendan.

[Author]

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