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Question

iPadOS 18 to 26 Upgrade Problem With Not Enough Storage on 8th Gen iPads

  • July 9, 2026
  • 2 replies
  • 110 views

cr4sh0ver
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8th gen ipads have only 32GB of storage, 11GB are used for OS and 3GB for system data, so, if you want to upgrade from iPadOS 18 to 26 the update requires 20GB of storage available in order to update making it almost impossible to update. The only options I see is to “restore” iPad with mac device or configurator, but just imagine doing this for hundreds of iPads, so the other option is to NOT update.

If you have\had this same issue let me know if you have found better options for this update and did you, your business or school district decided to stay in iPadOS 18 or not.

2 replies

avargas
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  • Contributor
  • July 9, 2026

We ran into the same issue. What we did was Return to Service in mass and push out a software update to a smart group containing all 8th Gen iPads. 

The RTS deletes all content and automatically rejoins the network.


dletkeman
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  • Jamf Heroes
  • July 10, 2026

We struggle with the same.  RTS or I just update with Apple Configurator if I physically have the iPad.  It’s a pain for sure.