DEV Community

Jacob Korsgaard
Jacob Korsgaard

Posted on • Updated on

[Solved] iPhone "The device is unreachable"

If you've ever tried copying photos from your iPhone using a PC, you may have encountered an issue that goes something like:

"The device is unreachable"

You may also have had issues with the iPhone disconnecting from the PC while you're trying to copy photos.

I have finally found out why this is happening. It turns out it's because the iPhone runs out of space!

For every copy operation you do from the phone to the PC, an additional copy is created on the phone in a buffer!

To ensure success, clear up space on your iPhone if you can, then reboot the iPhone to clear out any buffers. Then copy off the biggest files off the iPhone 1 by 1, delete them from the phone and reboot. Slowly build up space on the phone so further operations succeed.

Whenever you get the error, reboot the iPhone to clear up the buffer used and try again.

Top comments (0)