Can't remove files from my iPhone

[Greenpig]

I was running out of space on my phone (iPhone 4s running ios 7) and saw that Spotify was using 5.6GB of disk space. I deleted most of my downloaded music, but the Spotify usage remained stuck on 5.6GB. In the help, it says that the cache will be freed up in the space is needed for something else, so I tried downloading some very large files, but no luck -- I got a "no room" message in iTunes and the Spotify usage didn't budge from 5.6GB. The only thing that worked was to delete the program and reinstall it, which requires re-downloading any music I want to keep on my phone.

What am I doing wrong? 

[MichaelW]

Hi there,
Welcome at the Spotify Community!

How much space does Spotify use when you don't download all the songs? 

Just open Spotify and immediatly enable offline mode via the settings of the app.

Please let us know.

[Greenpig]

Immediately after deleting and re-downloading, Spotify was using 54MB. I then went to "Your Music" and made three albums available offline. After this, Spotify was using 561 MB.

Turning on Offline Mode for the entire app doesn't change this: I'm still showing 561MB usage.

I download files @ 320 kpbs.

[MichaelW]

Well, I don't know how big an song is, but how much songs do your playlists contain?

[Greenpig]

It's 73 tracks.  These are classical pieces, so they're rather long. And I download at a high bitrate.

I'm not complaining that the playlists are too big. I just want to be able to remove the downloaded files from my phone when I turn off the "available offline" switch.

[MichaelW]

Maybe @MattSuda can help you, he's a better expert with iPhones then I am.

[Jordi]

What quality setting do you use?

Michael, Maybe when I tag @MattSuda for you 🙂

At rank Signed Artist and up you are able to @mention someone 🙂

[SaucyTryhard]

This happens to me, and a whole lot of other people as well. What he's saying is that when we try to remove a song from being offline on our iPhone, the song is still on the phone, thus taking up space that we are trying to get back. 

Example: I download Chris Brown's Album X

I need space to download the newest Infinity Blade game. So I go in Spotify to delete the Album, only problem is that even if I do make it online again, it is still taking up space on the iPhone. It's been doing this for months now with no fix from any of you guys.

[MichaelW]

Already saw that I can't tag, but when I tag someone I also send an PM to notify him/her 😉

Thanks anyway 🙂

[MattSuda]

Currently when you turn off the "available offline" switch, sometimes it doesn't fully clear the cache. To make sure the song cache gets fully deleted, you need to delete the app and reinstall it.

I don't have much information to share on this issue, but the iOS developers have been looking into the cache issue for a while now (it's a hot topic) and hopefully they can implement a better way to clear the cache in the future.

So 73 long tracks in 320kbps is around 500MB for you? Well I have around 1,200 songs downloaded for offline mode in 320kbps and that takes up around 13.3 GB, but most of the songs are around 3-4 minutes long. So that seems about right.

[Greenpig]

The help page implies that this is a feature, not a bug: "Spotify saves synced playlists in an encrypted form on your device’s storage. If you stop syncing, the data will remain to allow you to resync later." I don't really understand the point of this, but whatever. It wouldn't matter if what they go on to say is true: "If you need space on your phone for a new download (if you’re adding a new app, for example), iOS will automatically free up space by deleting this stored data." But it's not true. The Spotfy data stays put and the download fails.

Why don't they just delete the cached tracks when you turn off "available offline" for that playlist or album? Why would I want to have hidden, encrypted, synced playlists on my phone? If I'm turning off "available offline", I'm either done listening to this music, or I need the space. In either case, I don't want them stored on my phone. And I can't think of a case where I WOULD want this.

Thanks for your help!

[iSeptimus]

I have the same issue.  It is laziness (or stupidity?)  by Spotify app devs to be honest.  They should add a CLEAR CACHE button!  It's not difficult to clear your own apps cache.  Having to delete the entire app to free up space is ridiculous.  I've come back from Android to iOS and had no idea this stupid issue is still around on iOS after years!

[MichaelW]

Spotify doesn't remove the stored music immediatly because you might disable 'Offline use' by accident. 

In Android I have a button 'Remove cache and stored data' at the bottom of the settings page. 

Could you check if iOS does have this option too?

[Greenpig]

Well, they could do what everyone else does and pop up a box saying "This will delete these files from your device. Do you want to continue?"

There's no "delete cached files" button that I can see on iPhone Spotify, unfortunately.