How to detect total available/free disk space on t

Question

I'm looking for a better way to detect available/free disk space on the iPhone/iPad device programmatically.
Currently I'm using the NSFileManager to detect the disk space. Following is the snippet of the code which does the job for me:

-(unsigned)getFreeDiskspacePrivate {
NSDictionary *atDict = [[NSFileManager defaultManager] attributesOfFileSystemForPath:@"/" error:NULL];
unsigned freeSpace = [[atDict objectForKey:NSFileSystemFreeSize] unsignedIntValue];
NSLog(@"%s - Free Diskspace: %u bytes - %u MiB", __PRETTY_FUNCTION__, freeSpace, (freeSpace/1024)/1024);

return freeSpace;
}

Am I correct with the above snippet? or is there any better way to know total available/free disk space.
I've to detect total free disk space, since we've to prevent our application to perform sync in the low disk space scenario.

Answer 1

If your looking to get the the remaining free space using Swift it is slightly different. You need to use attributesOfFileSystemForPath() instead of attributesOfItemAtPath():

func deviceRemainingFreeSpaceInBytes() -> Int64? {
    let documentDirectoryPath = NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains(.DocumentDirectory, .UserDomainMask, true)
    var attributes: [String: AnyObject]
    do {
        attributes = try NSFileManager.defaultManager().attributesOfFileSystemForPath(documentDirectoryPath.last! as String)
        let freeSize = attributes[NSFileSystemFreeSize] as? NSNumber
        if (freeSize != nil) {
            return freeSize?.longLongValue
        } else {
            return nil
        }
    } catch {
        return nil
    }
}

Edit: Updated for Swift 1.0
Edit 2: Updated for safety, using Martin R's answer.
Edit 3: Updated for Swift 2.0 (by dgellow)

Answer 2

For iOS >= 6.0 you can use the new NSByteCountFormatter. This code gets the number of free bytes remaining as a formatted string.

NSError *error = nil;
NSArray * const paths = NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains(NSDocumentDirectory, NSUserDomainMask, YES);
NSDictionary * const pathAttributes = [[NSFileManager defaultManager] attributesOfFileSystemForPath:[paths firstObject] error:&error];
NSAssert(pathAttributes, @"");
NSNumber * const fileSystemSizeInBytes = [pathAttributes objectForKey: NSFileSystemFreeSize];
const long long numberOfBytesRemaining = [fileSystemSizeInBytes longLongValue];
NSByteCountFormatter *byteCountFormatter = [[NSByteCountFormatter alloc] init];
NSString *formattedNmberOfBytesRemaining = [byteCountFormatter stringFromByteCount:numberOfBytesRemaining];

Answer 3

I know this post is a bit old, but I think this answer can help someone. If you want to know the used/free/total disk space on the device you can use Luminous. It's written in Swift. You have only to call :

Luminous.System.Disk.freeSpace()
Luminous.System.Disk.usedSpace()

or

Luminous.System.Disk.freeSpaceInBytes()
Luminous.System.Disk.usedSpaceInBytes()

Answer 4

Following code is Swift 3.0 version implementation of the answer previously provided by ChrisJF:

func freeSpaceInBytes() -> NSString {

    var remainingSpace = NSLocalizedString("Unknown", comment: "The remaining free disk space on this device is unknown.")

    do {
        let dictionary =  try FileManager.default.attributesOfFileSystem(forPath: NSHomeDirectory())
        let freeSpaceSize = ((dictionary[FileAttributeKey.systemFreeSize] as AnyObject).longLongValue)!
        remainingSpace = ByteCountFormatter.string(fromByteCount: freeSpaceSize, countStyle: ByteCountFormatter.CountStyle.file)
    }
    catch let error {
        NSLog(error.localizedDescription)
    }

    return remainingSpace as NSString

}

Answer 5

Update with a new accurate API to get available size on disk available in iOS11. Here is the description for the new API resource key:

#if os(OSX) || os(iOS)
/// Total available capacity in bytes for "Important" resources, including space expected to be cleared by purging non-essential and cached resources. "Important" means something that the user or application clearly expects to be present on the local system, but is ultimately replaceable. This would include items that the user has explicitly requested via the UI, and resources that an application requires in order to provide functionality.
/// Examples: A video that the user has explicitly requested to watch but has not yet finished watching or an audio file that the user has requested to download.
/// This value should not be used in determining if there is room for an irreplaceable resource. In the case of irreplaceable resources, always attempt to save the resource regardless of available capacity and handle failure as gracefully as possible.
@available(OSX 10.13, iOS 11.0, *) @available(tvOS, unavailable) @available(watchOS, unavailable)
public var volumeAvailableCapacityFor Usage: Int64? { return _get(.volumeAvailableCapacityForImportantUsageKey) }
#endif

I cross compared the results from key "FileAttributeKey.systemFreeSize" and key "URLResourceKey.volumeAvailableCapacityForImportantUsageKey" and found the results returned form "volumeAvailableCapacityForImportantUsageKey" exactly matches the available storage shown on UI. Here is the swift implementation:

class var freeDiskSpaceInBytesImportant:Int64 {
    get {
        do {
            return try URL(fileURLWithPath: NSHomeDirectory() as String).resourceValues(forKeys: [URLResourceKey.volumeAvailableCapacityForImportantUsageKey]).volumeAvailableCapacityForImportantUsage!
        } catch {
            return 0
        }
    }
}

Answer 6

Here's my answer and why it's better.

Answer (Swift):

func remainingDiskSpaceOnThisDevice() -> String {
    var remainingSpace = NSLocalizedString("Unknown", comment: "The remaining free disk space on this device is unknown.")
    if let attributes = try? FileManager.default.attributesOfFileSystem(forPath: NSHomeDirectory()),
        let freeSpaceSize = attributes[FileAttributeKey.systemFreeSize] as? Int64 {
        remainingSpace = ByteCountFormatter.string(fromByteCount: freeSpaceSize, countStyle: .file)
    }
    return remainingSpace
}

Answer (Objective-C):

- (NSString *)calculateRemainingDiskSpaceOnThisDevice
{
    NSString *remainingSpace = NSLocalizedString(@"Unknown", @"The remaining free disk space on this device is unknown.");
    NSDictionary *dictionary = [[NSFileManager defaultManager] attributesOfFileSystemForPath:NSHomeDirectory() error:nil];
    if (dictionary) {
        long long freeSpaceSize = [[dictionary objectForKey:NSFileSystemFreeSize] longLongValue];
        remainingSpace = [NSByteCountFormatter stringFromByteCount:freeSpaceSize countStyle:NSByteCountFormatterCountStyleFile];
    }
    return remainingSpace;
}

Why it's better:

• Utilizes Cocoa's built in library NSByteCountFormatter, meaning no crazy manual calculations from bytes to gigabytes. Apple does this for you!
• Easily translatable: NSByteCountFormatter does this for you. E.g. When the device's language is set to English the string will read 248.8 MB but will read 248,8 Mo when set to French, et cetera for other languages.
• A default value is given in case of an error.