iPad Files and Setting Apps Extremely Slow Response Times

For some time now (months) my iPad has had extremely slow response times in the Files app and one of the Settings settings. 


In the Settings app, Safari > Advanced > Website Data almost always can’t display any websites.  I’ve waited as long as a full half hour with the spinning cursor, with no results.  A couple times in the past couple days it did display the websites, and did it very quickly, but that was after numerous failures over the past few months.  Around a half hour later I tried it again and it failed to find any websites.


For the Files app, the response has become generally slower over time.  I keep all but a handful of my files in “On My iPad”, so there is no network access involved. It started out with tapping on a file, which would not immediately open.  Now I often see no files at all or no files in some folders.  The files are still there, Files is just unable to display them in a timely fashion. Even when I can see the files listed, I still often still have a problem opening them.  I’ll be able to open that problem file a long time later. 


Does anyone have any suggestions as to what might cause this?


What I’ve done thus far:

  • forced quit the apps.
  • shutdown and restarted my iPad, many times to no avail.
  • backed up my iPad.


Things I haven’t tried yet:

  • I’ve read that Files app issues might be resolved by deleting the app and reinstalling it via the App Store.  That of course would delete my files, which I would need to restore from backup.  But I’m not convinced that it is simply a Files app issue, because of that Settings app problem.
  • I’ve also read that setting the iPad back to factory settings could possibly help.  But iPad backups omit a lot of 3rd party data, so I don’t want to do this unless absolutely necessary.

How to factory reset your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support


Again, I would greatly appreciate any thoughts on the matter.


iPad Air 4, Cellular but no SIM CARD

3 years old

91.41 GB of 256 GB used

On My iPad: 5.7 GB

iPadOS 17.4


iPad Air (4th generation)

Posted on Mar 19, 2024 06:29 AM

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Posted on Mar 25, 2024 11:05 PM

Update 3: I just want to report that my iPad still seems to be functioning correctly several days after I reset it back to factory condition and then restored it from backup. So I have high hopes that doing so resolved my problem. I did find another thing that didn’t get restored. Namely ePUB books that I had manually added did not get backed up. That is books that I had purchased outside of the Books Store (e.g., Take Control Books) and free ones, such as from Project Gutenberg.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Mar 25, 2024 11:05 PM in response to BevInTX

Update 3: I just want to report that my iPad still seems to be functioning correctly several days after I reset it back to factory condition and then restored it from backup. So I have high hopes that doing so resolved my problem. I did find another thing that didn’t get restored. Namely ePUB books that I had manually added did not get backed up. That is books that I had purchased outside of the Books Store (e.g., Take Control Books) and free ones, such as from Project Gutenberg.

Mar 22, 2024 08:14 AM in response to BevInTX

Update 2: Deleting and reinstalling the Files app did not solve the problem.


This morning I backed up my iPad again, both to iCloud and my Mac. (I wanted two backup methods, so I temporarily added enough iCloud storage to enable doing it to iCloud. I have a Reminder set to turn it off in a month or so, depending on my needs.). As Apple Support directs, on a Mac make sure to select “Back up all of the data on your iPad to this Mac.”, because the default is to only backup important data, which may not be all of what is important to you.

Back up iPad - Apple Support


I then did a factory reset of my iPad.

How to factory reset your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support


Next I restored my iPad from backup:

Restore your device - Apple Support


I had thought that I might have to redownload all of my Kindle app books, but they were all restored.


After the restore you will have some setup and configurations to do. I’m still in the process of finding everything, but here are a few:

  • Security stuff, including touchID.
  • I use IMAP mail accounts, so Mail needs to download all mailbox contents again.
  • For Safari, my Tab groups and Profiles are missing, though it did restore the Profile bookmarks. So I’ll have to create the profiles again in Settings>Safari and the tab groups in Safari. I am going to provide feedback to Apple about this. Feedback - iPad - Apple
  • I discovered that some of my files in the Files app are bad, so I’ll have to cull them out. I have a lot of files, so that may take some time.


I’ll post another update in a few days to indicate whether doing all of this actually resolved my problems.





Mar 21, 2024 08:52 AM in response to BevInTX

Update: Since I didn’t get any responses, I backed up all of my files, deleted the Files app, and then reinstalled it via the App Store.  It turned out that deleting the Files app does NOT delete your files, so I didn’t have to restore them.  Still, it’s good to have backups when fiddling around like this.


Everything looks fine at the moment (all files readily accessible and Safari website data populates in Settings).  However, given that the problem is intermittent, I’ll use the iPad for a few days and then report whether this was the correct solution, or not.

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iPad Files and Setting Apps Extremely Slow Response Times

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