Affinity Designer using hundreds of gigabytes of storage

[brebro]

I'm wondering about this too. I am likewise, trying to scrape by with 32GB on my iPad Pro and trying to get rid of unused files, but I can't seem to figure out where these Affinity Photo files that show up in the Inbox folder in iTunes, when the iPad is connected to my iMac, reside on the iPad and how I get rid of them.

As you can see, I have already closed and deleted all my files, leaving only the sample, tutorial files that come with the app:

 

I don't have the huge size problems some are having, the app is taking "only" a GB for itself and there are almost a gig of other documents somewhere:

 

When I open iTunes, it shows the Inbox folder has about 300MB of files:

 

 

Dragging that folder to my desktop shows there are brush files and library files, but also regular PSD files that have long since been deleted, but that still are somehow taking up space on the iPad in this folder:

None of these are shown in the Files as being on my iPad files, I don't even show an Affinity Photo folder there at all:

So, why are these layered files still taking space up in this Inbox folder, and how do I get rid of them, short of deleting the app and reinstalling it and all my purchased brush sets, etc.?

[erogan]

I am also experiencing this.

17 gigs is being used but when I add up the files in my Affinity Designer folder "On My Ipad" it comes to no more than a few hundred megs.

Absolutely love the app, but really love to be able to reclaim this space as I have a small amount of storage on my iPad (and I use it exclusively for this purpose for work).

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[mirkoschieder]

I'm having the same problem, though Designer and Photo have "only" accumulated 15GB together...

Closing files and erasing them from "My iPad" and iCloud doesn't help, neither does deleting all brushes I bought.

 

 

@Gabe: Please help!

[epo]

For what its worth I have a freshly bought, unused copy of Photo 1.8.3 on my freshly bought ipad pro. It shows an app size of 1.47Gb and 1.8Mb of documents and data.

[Gabe]

5 hours ago, mirkoschieder said:

I'm having the same problem, though Designer and Photo have "only" accumulated 15GB together...

Closing files and erasing them from "My iPad" and iCloud doesn't help, neither does deleting all brushes I bought.

 

 

@Gabe: Please help!

Not much we can do as it's an iOS issue: see my post here: 

 

[epo]

Could it be caching? Try forcibly closing the app and then doing a hard reset

[Christian S.]

On 5/13/2020 at 4:51 PM, Gabe said:

Not much we can do as it's an iOS issue: see my post here: 

 

I don't believe it is an iOS issue when the app shows files as deleted but the files are still around in the space of the app, just as brebro demonstrated in October:

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/72647-affinity-designer-using-hundreds-of-gigabytes-of-storage/&do=findComment&comment=539531

The app seems to lose track of the files. It shouldn't be required by users to use iTunes/MacOS finder to clean up after the app.

I'm not an developer on iOS, but I think I understand enough of this to believe the following link describes the problem and hints to potential solutions well enough: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/15707874/good-way-to-manage-the-documents-inbox-folder-in-an-ios-app

[Jhonatan S]

having the same issue.
any news about to solve this?

I've deleted many of my projects, and still taking the whole space

[Robotcult]

On 5/13/2020 at 10:51 AM, Gabe said:

Not much we can do as it's an iOS issue: see my post here: 

 

Well ok then. That’s an absurd and unacceptable reply. I have literally 1 file in Affinity Designer, yet my iPad is now completely full. App deleted. Reconsider your methodology. No other apps exhibit this problem.

[SmallFish]

I’m also experiencing this issue. It’s very disconcerting to see it being relegated as an IOS issue and then what? Just leave it there?

[Paul Mudditt]

11 hours ago, SmallFish said:

I’m also experiencing this issue. It’s very disconcerting to see it being relegated as an IOS issue and then what? Just leave it there?

There could well be something wrong with your iPad firmware, because they are mobile devices without a ground/earth connection they are prone to being zapped by static electricity which can alter the state of flash memory cells and hardware registers.

It is always worth performing a Forced Restart to try and fix the problem. Next escalation point would be reset all settings. Further from that perform a full backup and restore cycle which will refresh all apps and firmware with fresh copies from the app store.

[Christian S.]

7 hours ago, Paul Mudditt said:

zapped by static electricity which can alter the state of flash memory cells and hardware registers.

And this random defect (if it's even technically possible) causes a perfect working iPad with just one and the same issue in the Affinity apps for many users? Wow, that's what I call a coincidence... 🤣

[Paul Mudditt]

4 hours ago, Christian S. said:

And this random defect (if it's even technically possible) causes a perfect working iPad with just one and the same issue in the Affinity apps for many users? Wow, that's what I call a coincidence... 🤣

And your experience of electrostatic discharge testing to IEC 61000-4-2 is? In my 42 years of electronic design and qualification experience, all designs have weak points and electrostatic discharges have a knack of finding them.

There is a delay, between deleting files from the sandbox and the space being freed up which gradually gets recovered in the background, which can give the impression that space isn’t getting freed up. I haven’t tried doing any scientific tests on that but by the next day the space seems to recover on my iPads.

[Skippy]

On 5/14/2020 at 12:21 AM, Gabe said:

Not much we can do as it's an iOS issue: see my post here: 

 

I'm guessing you have reported this bug/issue to Apple?

[Gabe]

On 6/19/2020 at 11:00 AM, Skippy said:

I'm guessing you have reported this bug/issue to Apple?

Yep

[Christian S.]

On 10/24/2019 at 10:02 AM, Gabe said:

I've deleted all the files yesterday morning, restarted the iPad several times, added and removed more files, and now the Files app is using 319GB of data, and there's absolutely nothing stored on "On my iPad" .

Did you remove the files from "recently deleted"? I did the same as you and had 84GB of files on my 64GB iPad: 

Like you said this works because APFS doesn't copy physically as long as the files are not changed. 
 

Then I deleted the files, still 84GB reported. 
Next I removed the files from "recently deleted" and everything is back to normal:

 

  But all of this doesn't explain why the Affinity app doesn't clean up its own folders properly.

 

[Niyaz]

I have a iPad air 4, switched from illustrator to affinity due to lack of features. but this whole storage issue is a headache.

The problem started when i imported my old works from .ai format, later i saved my work took a backup and deleted the apps including icloud data, and imported only the affinity original files and the storage issue has not cropped up yet, been 4 days

Will post again here if the issue persists

[thomasb.sh]

Guys, please listen up here!

In normal windows NTFS filesystem, if you copy a 2GB file, it you would be using 2GB(original) + 2GB (duplicate)

However, in mac APFS filesystem, if you copy a 2GB file, it would be using 2GB(original) + 0GB (duplicate)

Yes, the duplicate takes ZERO GB. However, the actual size of the duplicated file is still 2GB, even though it takes up 0GB on the disk.

So yes!, a 512GB drive can hold 700GB & it's not an error on iOS or iPadOS.

Affinity Designer is duplicating tooo many files. It's a cache issue.

Trust me on this, I'm a developer myself, and I know what I'm talking about!

Edited June 18, 2021 by thomasb.sh

[Nicola J]

I am also encountering the same problem. Working with new template is fine but when I worked and I uploaded a big file which I've also created with AD, that's when the crashing starts. When trying to open them, it still crashed. When saving to a png file, it crashed. However when I am saving it as a pdf file, it's fine.

 

I hope the devs fix this issue soon on your next update. Thank you and God speed.

[S-C]

Have been using Designer for a couple weeks on an older iPad Pro and just discovered this issue.  The app’s storage is slowly creeping upward even though I’m not creating any new files! Yesterday it was at 3GB; I “closed” some files from the main menu and the storage crept up to 4gb... checked it today, and now it’s at 5GB.  

Still don’t have a clear idea of where these files are physically stored.  I can save them to the Affinity Designer folder in Files/On My iPad/Affinity Designer; those files are pretty small; <50mb.  Have no idea where the working files on my main menu are located.  

[Clearlipstick]

Is there a solution? I’ve deleted everything and started again last week but now it’s screening to a halt again due to AD data consuming 32g of 64g.. What is the common denominator here? Is it only happening with older iPads? 

[dmtp14]

4 hours ago, Clearlipstick said:

Is there a solution? I’ve deleted everything and started again last week but now it’s screening to a halt again due to AD data consuming 32g of 64g.. What is the common denominator here? Is it only happening with older iPads? 

mine is a pro 2020...and AD data storage is massive...1/3 of 512 GB....

[Clearlipstick]

I’ve deleted/restored AD again just now. Afterwards, I’m noticing that as I remove a document/project from the front screen, AD stores data on that doc. Despite its removal. The larger the project the more it’s stores.  However it only does this once per document project. After reloading one particular saved document again and again it didn’t save extra. It must cache data from every removed documents as well.  Obviously a way to remove or prevent this is needed.. 

[M.Z]

I too have the same problem.

67 files in my AD folder totalling under 5 GB, yet taking up 63GB in the 'iPad storage' section. None of my other programs (procreate, fresco, etc.) are misbehaving like this, and they contain comparable file types and amounts of data. I'm on a 2016 iPad Pro.

Hope Serif are on it.

[RcAbdulkh]

I don't know if this thread is still active, but recently my affinity designer file is taking up WAY too much space as well. 511 of 512 gigs of space or more accurately 494.92GB of space of 512 gigs.