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Writer's pictureSteffen Schwerdtfeger

Shared iPads with "Temporary session only" running out of storage since iPadOS 17

Experiencing problems with Shared iPads set to "Temporary session only" since iPadOS 17? When logging in with the temporary guest account you might see the error message "Not enough storage space".


Some background.

Shared iPads are commonly used when they are passed between multiple users. For logging in you can use Managed Apple IDs (federated to Entra ID if wanted) or a temporary guest account. The second option is suitable for education environments (like pool iPads) or kiosks at exhibitions where you require an automatic clean-up after usage.


  • System

  • Apps and Media

  • User space


There are two ways to configure the storage quota per user according to Apple:


  • maximum storage allocated for each user

  • maximum number of users (iPadOS calculates storage per user)


When setting up the enrollment profile in Intune, you can use the second option - specify "Maximum cached users". But, once "Require Shared iPad temporary session only" is selected, it gets greyed out.



QuotaSize since iPadOS 17

Now comes the problem: Since iPadOS 17 "A Shared iPad configured for temporary sessions now honors the QuotaSize key for the temporary user" according to: What’s new for enterprise in iPadOS 17 - Apple Support.


After enrolling a Shared iPad nearly the full storage gets reserved for the guest account. For system there are only some GBs left. Example of a 64GB iPad:


  • Available for System: ~2GB

  • Available for Guest: ~42GB


Once actions like iPadOS or app updates are performed, the system space seems to decrease which results in the "Not enough storage space". First thought: Changing the QuotaSize would help: "The quota size, in megabytes (MB), for each user on the shared device" (see: Apple Developer). Unfortunately, Intune does not allow to configure this - jamf does 😒


How to move on?

First workaround was to disable "Require Shared iPad temporary session only". Storage allocation was solved better, but Managed Apple ID login appeared, too.

If the workaround was not used, I can report from the field that you get iPads with storage problems on regular basis.


Finally: Wipe and re-enroll

Good news: Already tried wiping and re-enrolling a shared iPad in the last days? Microsoft has done some changes (that you cannot see in the enrollment profile). After that, you will see an updated storage allocation:


  • Storage for system: before ~2GB, now ~42GB

  • Storage for guest user: before ~42GB, now ~2GB


Hopefully, storage problems with OS updates etc. are gone now. What does one's gut say? Around ~2GB for the guest account is quiet low.


Set QuotaSize via enrollment profile

In the end, I assume that Microsoft will add the option to set QuotaSize manually. This would allow full flexibility. For now, just go ahead and re-enroll affected devices.

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