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Quick tip: iPhone, iPad, iPod photo syncing could be filling your hard drive

Many users, especially those with notebooks, are at a constant battle to maintain decent on board hard drive space without having to sacrifice too much content on their machine. Syncing the photos on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod could be costing you some of that valuable space.

Joe Aimonetti MacFixIt Editor
Joe is a seasoned Mac veteran with years of experience on the platform. He reports on Macs, iPods, iPhones and anything else Apple sells. He even has worked in Apple retail stores. He's also a creative professional who knows how to use a Mac to get the job done.
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Joe Aimonetti
2 min read
Many users, especially those with notebooks, are at a constant battle to maintain decent onboard hard drive space without having to sacrifice too much content on their machine. Syncing the photos on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod could be costing you some of that valuable space.

When you are using iTunes to sync your photos to iPhone, iPad, or your iPod, iTunes automatically creates a folder on your machine called iPod Photo Cache. This folder contains a backup copy of the photos currently synced to your device.

 
Switching sync folders takes valuable hd space. Screenshot by Joe Aimonetti

If you change the folder that is syncing to your Apple device, the old photo cache is not deleted, but a new folder is created. Changing the folders that you are syncing many times could quickly fill up smaller hard drives with unnecessary photo duplicates.

To get rid of old iPod Photo Cache folders, simply drag that folder to your Trash (on a Mac) or Recycle Bin (on a PC). If you're having trouble finding that folder, you are probably syncing your photos from iPhoto on your Mac. Follow these steps to find it:

  1. Click on Go from the Finder menu bar and choose Home.
  2. Open the Pictures folder and highlight the iPhoto Library file.
  3. Secondary-click (CTRL + Click) and choose, Show Package Contents from the contextual menu. Note: the iPhoto Library file is an enclosed package, much like an installer. This is done to protect users from moving essential files that iPhoto needs to operate smoothly.
  4. Locate the iPod Photo Cache folder and drag it to your Trash. Close the Finder window and you're all set.

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