How much content will fit on my iPod or iPhone?

What else is on the iPod?

In iTunes 7 or later, by highlighting your device on the left side under Devices and selecting the Summary tab (or any other tab), you can see a graphical representation of how much space is being used on your device as shown below:

In addition to music files, there are several other types of files that can use disk space on the iPod or iPhone:

iPod and iPhone:

• Videos can use a significant amount of disk space (includes TV shows and movies).
• Podcasts, especially video podcasts.
• Audiobooks.
• Photos can use significant disk space.
• Contacts, calendars, and notes, although this typically represents a small amount of space.
• iPod and iPhone software: Even though you might not think about it, the software needed to view and play all of your content takes up space.
• iPod games and iPhone or iPod touch applications: Games and applications purchased from the App Store can occupy a significant amount of space (data pertaining to these applications as well as the applications themselves).
• Email and enclosures (iPod touch and iPhone only): Email can occupy a significant amount of space.

iPhone only:

• SMS messages: SMS text messages sent and received on the iPhone (and MMS messages with iPhone 3GS).
  
• Ringtones: If you have purchased or added ringtones to the iPhone.

iPod only:

• Data files: Using your iPod as a disk, and copying files to iPod. Find more information on using your iPod as a storage drive.
  

How does song encoding affect song file size?

The encoding settings for songs you have imported from Audio CD or added to your library from other sources can affect how many songs will fit on iPod or iPhone. The advertised song capacity is based on four-minute songs encoded at 128 Kilobits per second AAC (Advanced Audio Coding). See this article for more information. Longer songs and songs encoded at a higher bitrate use more disk space.

Find out how large a song or video or application is

You can find out how large individual songs, videos, audiobooks, and applications are by selecting an item in iTunes and then choosing File > Get Info (or right-click or Control-click the item and choose Get Info). The size is available under the Summary tab.

One more thing about disk capacity

In the iPod and iPhone About menu (and the iTunes Capacity bar), the disk capacity is reported as slightly less than the technical specifications for the device.

Why the difference? Most disk manufacturers measure disk capacity this way: 1 MB = 1 million bytes (1000 x 1000). A 4 GB disk, therefore, is one that holds 4 billion bytes. Computers, including Windows computers, Macintosh computers and iPod, measure disk capacity this way: 1 MB = 1 048 576 bytes (1024 x 1024). The difference in these two calculations is what causes the drive to appear as 3.7 GB on a computer, but actually be a 4 billion byte disk.