DTTG app size in iOS

My ancient iPad (16GB) was running out of storage (again) and suggested checking storage use in Settings. I was surprised that DTTG shows up as taking up around 60MB, when its synced database alone is closer to 6GB. I remember the database used to be included in the total size in earlier versions (either of iOS or DTTG).

That’s an issue of iOS as it doesn’t count data shared by the app and by extensions like the document provider introduced by version 2.1.

Could you please expand on this? Does this mean the “Available Storage” (on the device) is still correct, but simply that when you tap on “Manage Storage”, anything related to DTTG2’s usage is inaccurate, since it’s “data” is ignored by iOS?

So if you were considering whether or not to sync a new DB from DTPO to DTTG2, you would have to rely on the size of the DB as listed by DTPO, and the “Available Storage” listed under Settings on the iPad? In other words, I have 10GB “Available Storage”, but my DTPO DB that I want to sync is 15GB in size - therefore, I must use “On Demand” as opposed to “Always”?

Would that be correct?

Related hereto::

Is it just me, or is there a discrepancy between what DTTG2 says is the size of a DB, compared to the size listed in DTPO for that same DB?

Case in point, on DTTG2 a DB is described as being “56,8GB (28041 items)” in size, whereas on DTPO that same DB is listed as being “28051 (147 replicants), 30.4GB” in size… This discrepancy, assuming it’s not only me, becomes something to consider, in light of my earlier query?

Would appreciate some clarity on this.

One problem I have had with DTPO / DTTG is that when I sync something to the device, but then maybe delete that database, it doesn’t seem to be deleted from the Dropbox sync store. Deleting the sync store and resyncing everything will, of course, get rid of whatever was deleted. Perhaps that discrepancy you are seeing is old “deleted” stuff hanging around in the app / sync store somewhere.

Might well be. Did delete some DBs several versions ago, due to early sync issues… Direct sync (Bonjour) FWIW.

Hmmm… I don’t know if Bonjour would have the same issue. But, one way to check would be to delete the app, re-install, and then sync.

The database size listed by DTTG2 itself is the virtual (!) database size IF all documents were downloaded to the device. If you use shallow sync, this would be far higher than the actual database use, obviously.

The storage size that iOS shows you is inaccurate as it doesn’t count DTTG2’s databases at all due to our shift to the app becoming a document provider (where the database needs to reside in the so-called ‘app group container’ instead of the app’s Document directory to be accessible by both the app and its extensions).

We might add some display for the real on-disk database size as iOS has lost us here.

Thank you for the explanation!