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

  • July 9, 2026
  • 3 replies
  • 358 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.

3 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.


cr4sh0ver
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  • Author
  • Contributor
  • July 20, 2026

RTS did NOT work for us, but we figured out a solution that is about 90% successfull in our environment. We changed our “PreStage Enrollment” to require the latest OS before enrollment is processed. iPads go through normal enrollment process after the iPad has been updated, just needs a few clicks to get the device on the network. The other 10% is set aside since it needs hands on and time to be updated, but can be managed once we process the hundreds of iPads we need to update (hopefully last year of service for these 32GB bad boys)