iPhone Storage Full msg vs iTunes free space - Conflicting info

Hi there -- I keep getting "iPhone Storage Full Message" and deleting images to keep up with my overstuffed phone. I only have 300 photos on there, normally I don't get (or used to anyway) this message until I hit 800-900 photos so I wasn't sure what was going on. Went to backup my phone and do some serious purging when I noticed my iTunes says I have 2.89 GB free.

What gives?

Also what all is in Documents & Data (email?) and how can I get that down? We pass a lot of big files at work on email - are these 'stored' on my phone, or am I just accessing them on the network?

Thanks!

You don't say which model or memory capacity you have but that amount of photos is not busting whatever storage you have. 2.89gb is not much availability, especially if your phone is 16 or 32gb.

Check what is going on by opening Settings > General > Storage & iCloud Usage and under Storage (the phone's memory) click Manage Storage. This will tell you how much is used, how much is available and exactly what is using what amount of storage. Click on each one to see how the usage is made up and delete any you can live without.

The biggest by far on mine (below) is 24.16gb for Photos but I'm holding 5000+ images. I'm only storing Pages docs in Documents and Data, but I would guess that if you download email attachments, they would be stored there. Your phone will tell you.

Do you often add and delete media files from your phone? If so I read a tip some time ago which suggested that the storage space cn become somewhat fragmented over time. Try the following and see if it helps:

1. Follow Sue's advice above to see how much space is available on your phone.
2. Go to the iTunes store and find something large to download that needs more space than you have and attempt the download Movies are good for this and it doesn't matter whether you pick rent or buy. Star Wars movies are quite large IIRC.
3. Because the file is larger than the available space the download won't complete. It should warn you of this quickly,
4. Repeat step 1 and see if the amount of available space has gone up. Repeat steps 1 and 2 till the amount of available space stops increasing.

When I did this tip on the Sunday chat show a few months ago I made the following observations:
1. Some users report this tip recovered several GB for them. For me it was only a few hundred MB IIRC. How much space is recovered may depend upon how often you transfer media to and from the phone.
2. If you try the tip, pick a movie you don't mind either renting or buying. At least that way if the download/purchase completes you won't be too annoyed. Obviously, if you have more space than the movie files need I wouldn't bother to try this since the purchase may complete depending upon how you have your account settings.
3. If your available space is larger than the movies it's probably not worth trying this tip.

Probably an easier way to get back fragmented space is to attach the phone to your Mac and open iTunes and do a reset but not before you backup to your Mac or iCloud. If your iPhone is a 16 GB model you need to stop storing large amount of photos or videos on the phone.

thanks/sorry! have been away..... 16GB iPhone 5s

Still... where is the discrepancy coming from? iPhone (manage storage #s in settings) says I have 600MB left but when i sync to iTunes to clear off stuff off or add new music etc says I have 2.86 GB left. ? I know 600MB isn't a lot. I clear off my photos fairly regularly to keep up with it and am getting a new phone soon.

My main Q is why do the phone and itunes have different #s, and how can I clear out whatever is under "Documents & Data"? It's 4.76 GB according to iTunes. Is it a matter of deleting emails? Cos my gmail has way more than 4-5 GB of data.

SPECS (per iPhone storage settings)
PHOTOS 1.08 GB
Music 904 MB
Facebook 760 MB
Spotify 587 MB
Mail 529 MB
Messages 457 MB

Then its Yelp, Messenger, Weather, Twitter etc all clocking under 180MB and so on down the line. (I understand the OS etc take up space automatically and Ill only net 12GB, not my concern)

Per iTunes its
Audio 864 MB
Photos 1.01 GB
Apps 2.69 GB
Docs & Data 4.76 GB
Free 2.65 GB

My phone used to only yelp about storage when I got under 1GB maybe. Sometimes even less 500MB. More recently though, it prompts me earlier than that. I'm convinced its because I turned iCloud off (prev hacking) and it wants me to turn iCloud back on.

I'll try these tricks. Thanks!

Click on Documents and Data on phone and it will show what this comprises.