How to Change Media Sync Options on iPhone/iPad

When you tried to update your iPhone/iPad to the latest version but received a notification asking you to change the media sync options.

“Updating to iOS XXX requires at least XXX MB of free space on your iPhone. Please change your media sync options to make more storage available.”

However, where are media sync options and how to complete the task? Confused about this pop-up message? Don’t worry, this guide will tell you how to change media sync options on iPhone/iPad.

What is synced media on iPhone?

The reason you received this message is that your device does not have enough storage space to install the iOS update. iTunes asks you to change media sync options to make more storage available for iOS. However, it does not tell you where to find media sync options.

In fact, there is no "media sync options" button that can be turned on or off. It means that you can configure iTunes not to sync your music, movies, TV shows, etc. to your iPhone. If you have a large collection, they will take up a lot of storage capacity of your phone. It is foreseeable that stopping the sync will free up a lot of space.

How to change media sync options on iPhone

“change media sync options” means that you should stop syncing iTunes media files to iPhone/iPad. When synchronization stops, the files will be deleted from the device, thus freeing up more storage space.

If you do not want to change media sync options, you can go to the next part to learn some other methods to help free up storage space on your iPhone/iPad.

Steps to change your media sync options

Make sure that you have installed the latest version of iTunes.

1. Click the Device tab.

2. Under Settings, choose the content type that you want to stop syncing. Here we take Podcasts as an example.

3. Uncheck the box next to Sync Podcasts.

4. Click Apply to confirm the settings.

How to free up more storage space on iPhone/iPad

From the above, you know how to change media sync options on iPad/iPhone. When you stop the sync, it will remove all data of a certain content type. If you do not want to delete all files, you may choose to delete selected files manually.

● You can go to Settings > General > iPhone/iPad Storage to delete large photos, videos, and attachments.

● Or you can choose to delete some infrequently used apps. If you want to keep its documents and data, you can tap the Offload App option to make it.

● Photos, videos and songs always take up a lot of storage space. You can choose to delete some old items to free up more space. Before deleting, you can transfer them to computer as backup. Here we recommend a professional iOS data backup/transfer tool named AOMEI FoneBackup to help you.

Now you can download Aomei FoneBackup on your computer to easily transfer data from iPhone to PC to get more iPhone storage.

Step 1. Click Phone Transfer > Locate iPhone to PC option and click Get Started > Choose the photos, videos or songs you want to save to computer.

3. Select a path to save your files from the Transfer settings option (You are allowed to transfer files to an external hard drive or USB flash drive) > Finally, click Start Transfer.

Now you can delete photos, videos or songs on iPhone to free up space. After the update, you can transfer these files back to your iPhone at any time. (Unlike iTunes sync, it will not erase any existing data on the device.)

Conclusion

That’s all about how to change media sync options on iPhone and iPad. In short, you can delete files synced from iTunes to free up space. If you don’t want to change sync options, you can choose to delete apps, large files, old photos, or other files to create space for update.

To efficiently get more iPhone/iPad storage, you can choose Aomei Fonebackup to help you transfer files from iPhone to PC at a super-fast speed.