How to move massive files off your iPad – when all else fails

I record many hands-on projects for my YouTube channel. Often, one or more stages of a project must be recorded in a single take. That’s because once whatever it is I’m doing is done, it’s done.

Take unboxing videos, for example. Some of the items I’m opening come in giant crates. The crates must be aggressively disassembled to access the gear inside. Once that disassembly is completed, there are no redos. The same can be said for cutting material for a project. Once it’s cut, it’s cut.

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My point is, I don’t get many opportunities for do-overs. If my video has errors, my only option is creative editing. But starting over and trying again is not usually an option.

To give myself a fairly good chance of getting good video, I arrange several iOS devices around the work site. Each is pointed at my project for filming. Later, in editing, I stitch the multicam recordings together and jump from view to view to show things from different angles.

My collection of iOS recording gear consists of three iPhones, two base iPads (9th and 10th generation), and an M1-based iPad Pro. The base iPads are often the first used, because they’re inexpensive. If they were to tumble onto the concrete in the fairly inhospitable environment of my workshop, I’d be out $300 instead of a thousand bucks or more.

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My 10th-generation iPad only has 64GB of storage. This capacity has never been a problem. I only have a few filming-related apps on the device. I clear the iPad out after every recording session. But last time, I ran into a snag.

My 20GB recording

I recorded a 20GB video in a single one-hour and 14-minute take. While I recorded the process with another camera, the iPad take was the only one where I was positioned on frame correctly with the giant 3D printer I was taking out of its crate.

In other words, without this 20GB block of video, the YouTube video would have come out looking like crap.

Unfortunately, the iPad wouldn’t allow me to extract the video from its precious memory.

My usual practice is to record using Blackmagic Camera. This feature-rich, free app allows you to record with a ton of settings, record Bluetooth audio, and control up to four iOS devices at once.

I usually move the completed video out of the Blackmagic Camera’s storage by saving it into Photos, which uses iCloud to sync the video to my Mac. But there wasn’t enough storage on the iPad to make a 20GB copy for the Photos app.

I tried to AirDrop the file, but the process kept failing.

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So, I used USB-C to plug my iPad into my Mac and tried transferring the file using the Finder. This process failed. I even plugged an external USB-C drive directly into my iPhone. Blackmagic Camera still wouldn’t transfer the video, and the Files app on the phone wouldn’t do it either.

Everything broke. And my can’t-do-it-again hour-plus video would not move to my editing environment. I was stuck.

Why won’t it work?

This is a snapshot of that iPad’s storage when almost everything is removed. Photos are set on Optimize iPad Storage, so only small proxy images are stored on the device.

As you can see, iPadOS and System Data account for the lion’s share of storage allocation. Even virtually empty, the device has 37.3GB of 64GB used. Add a single 20GB recording to that allocation, and the device would have less than 7GB free.

My guess is that each of my previous attempts to move the file off the device failed because there wasn’t enough storage on the iPad to create a temporary staging copy outside the Blackmagic container directory. Since an app’s storage is sandboxed, it’s unavailable to other apps.

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Moving the file to another app means it must first be moved out of the container directory. With only 7GB spare on the device, that 20GB file couldn’t be moved out, so it was stuck there like a bug in amber.

That tool that saved me

As you might imagine, I was not willing to give up. I did a mad round of Googling and ChatGPTing. I eventually wound up with the names of a couple of utilities that promised to extract damaged photos and move files onto and off iOS devices.

Unfortunately, digging into a few of them, I found they were less than helpful. Most were fronted by the sort of consumer-focused loud-shouting landing page that didn’t inspire trust.

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And then, I found iMazing. iMazing didn’t shout its features and benefits. It had a normal landing page, a working trial, and a clean interface.

I loaded the app onto my Mac, connected my iPad via USB-C, launched iMazing, and was immediately disappointed. There was no icon for apps or the Blackmagic Camera. Then I noticed the More button, tapped it, and found the Filesystem option. That situation had promise.

I clicked that option and was presented with a set of folders. I opened Apps, then Blackmagic Cam, and dug down into Media. There was my 20.35GB file:

At 32 megabytes per second, my 20GB file took about 10 minutes to transfer. Nothing made me happier than to see the percent-done indicator steadily filling up, minute after minute.

And then, finally, this output was displayed:

Boom! The file made it to my Mac. I imported the video into Final Cut. The rest is YouTube history (such as it is). I was able to produce and share my video.

iMazing did not require any temporary storage on the iPad. You better believe I’ll keep the software in my kitbag for future large recordings. I’ll also do my best to segment recordings, but that’s not always possible.

At $40 and up, iMazing isn’t cheap. The app’s licensing can be confusing. The company has a per-year license that lets you connect up to three or more devices, and another license that’s permanent, with a different number of devices. It looks like once you register the app with a device, you can’t transfer it to a different device. Like I said, it’s confusing.

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The company provided me with a review copy of iMazing. But even if they hadn’t been so kind, the app would have been worth the $40 investment. I’d have happily spent it. Since I use that iPad for almost every shoot, I’m sure iMazing will continue to come in handy.

Have you ever hit a wall trying to move large files off an iPad or iPhone? What tools or workarounds have saved you in similar situations? Have you tried iMazing? If so, how did it perform for you? Do you have other go-to utilities for managing iOS storage or transferring files? Let us know in the comments below.

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