It’s a very common issue to have a large chunk of space taken up by the “Other” category in an iOS device. This can become very annoying especially when you run out of space and can’t sync your new album. The “Other” category is mostly just caches, corrupt backup data, failed downloads, and system data from the native iOS devices apps.
There are a few different ways to fix the “Other” category from taking up so much space. Restoring your device will fix the issue however there are other options that may work and are easier and faster. I’ll go through them from quickest and easiest to the more drastic but effective.
Delete browser cache
Browser Cache
If you’ve had your device for a long time and have never emptied the browser cache then there is a good chance that this will delete a large portion of the “Other” space. You can delete this cache by going to Settings -> Safari and tapping the “Clear History” and “Clear Cookies and Data” button. This may also result in a speed boost on your device if you have never deleted your browser cache before.
Delete Mail account and re-add
Delete Mail
Deleting your Mail cache will delete the cache of all the media and documents viewed and downloaded in the Mail app. If you go back into Mail after emptying its cache you’ll have to re-download the media or document to view it again. All your mail is stored online so deleting your mail account won’t permanently delete everything, it’s all still there, you just need to re-add your account after removing it.
To delete your mail account, go to Setting -> Mail, Contact, Calendars -> Tap on the Mail account you want to delete -> Scroll to the bottom and click the “Delete Account” button. To add your account back, go to Setting -> Mail, Contact, Calendars -> tap “Add Account…”.
Delete Text Messages
Delete Media Texts
You know where all of those pictures and videos you send / receive through text messages and iMessages are stored? It’s all stored in the “Other” category. The Messages app on your iOS device stores all of the text messages including any media files that were sent or received, dating back to the first text.
You can either delete the media one by one, or by deleting a whole conversation at once. Not everyone may want to delete the media in the messages, for those people, you should first copy the pictures / videos to your camera roll, then delete them. Plug your iOS device into iTunes after you’re done and you should see some of the “Other” storage space emptied out.
Use PhoneClean
Clear Junk from iPhone
Another tool that I recently found out about is PhoneClean. It makes removing the “Other” storage, clearing out the temporary and junk files as well as the caches, offline files, cookies, scripts and sync-failed media files really easy IF you buy it.
It automates the process, is really simple to use and can clean out a lot of storage with just a few clicks. You can download PhoneClean, scan your iOS device for free, however in order to remove the “Other” data you need to purchase it.
To use it all you have to do is download and it install it, plug in your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch and click the “Start Scan” button. PhoneClean will get to work on searching your device. This can take a little while so just let it do its thing. After it’s done, it will show how much space can be saved.
Next, just click the “Clean Up” button and PhoneClean will get to work on removing all that “Other” junk if you first purchase it. PhoneClean used to have a free version that could be used clear out “Other” storage, however it’s been updated to require to be purchased before it will clear anything out.
*Thank you to the commenters who took the time to give me a heads up on PhoneClean now requiring to be purchased before it can be used. Appreciate it :)
Empty out the Reading List
The Reading list in Safari is used to save website pages to the Safari cache. Since it actually saves the page to the device, every site page added takes up space because it stores it in the “Other” category. If you go to your device summary page in iTunes on your computer and view the “Other” section while removing sites from the Reading list, you can actually see the space slowly being emptied.
To remove items from the Reading List, open Safari on your iOS device -> tap the bookmarks button -> and then tap the Reading List button.
Delete iTunes Backups
Delete Backup
If you take this route, it may help to delete the browser cache as well as the Mail account as instructed above.
To delete your iTunes backups, open iTunes, click iTunes in the Menu bar -> Preferences -> Devices tab -> then delete all the backups. Restart your device, close iTunes and then re-open iTunes.
After deleting all the backups, make a new backup in iTunes and check to see if the other space has reduced.
Backup to iCloud instead of iTunes
Switching to backing up in iCloud instead of iTunes may also work if the “Other” data is corrupt iTunes backup data. To backup in iCloud instead of iTunes, open iTunes, go to your devices summary page and select “iCloud” under Backups.
Jailbroken Device
iCleaner from Cydia
If you have a jailbroken device you can SSH into /var/mobile/Media/ApplicationArchives and delete everything there. This folder contains all the partially downloaded apps that may have been interrupted at some time in the middle of the download.
Alternatively download a free app from Cydia called “iCleaner”. It automatically scans for all unnecessary files including app crashes, temporary files, app caches, browsing history and cookies. Once it’s done scanning, simply click the “Clean” button located at the upper right of iCleaner, then go back into iTunes and check the “Other” space.
Make a backup before using iCleaner just in case!
If you haven’t Jailbroken your device or are interesting in knowing how to Jailbreak, check out my other article: Jailbreak iOS 6 on iPhone 5, iPod, iPad 4 & mini
System Restore and Restore Backup
If none of the above instructions worked for you, a System Restore will fix the issue. Make note however restoring your device will erase everything on it and will reset it to its factory default settings. If you go this route make sure you make a backup of your device first so that you can restore all your settings and media. To restore:
Restore in iTunes
- Disconnect the USB cable from your iPad, iPhone or iPod
- Launch iTunes
- Turn off your iOS device. (Press and hold the Home and Power button until it turns off)
- Press and hold the Home button while you reconnect the USB cable
- Keep holding down the home button until iTunes shows an alert saying that a device in recovery mode has been detected.
- Click the Restore button
Alternatively, plug your device into iTunes, go to the Summary page and click “Restore [your device here]”.
It can also be done without iTunes or a computer by going to Settings -> General -> “Erase All Content and Settings” on your iOS device.
System Restore without Restoring Backup
Set up as a new iPhone
If you’ve restored your device, then restored your content from the backup only to find the “Other” category still taking up the same amount of space then you may need to restore your device and NOT restore your backup.
To do this, after your device restores and it asks you for your Apple ID it will ask you if you want to “Set up as a new [your device here]”, “Restore from iCloud Backup” or “Restore from iTunes”. Select “Set up as a new [your device here]”.
This will set up your device without restoring any settings, iMessages ect. If you use icloud.com for your email address however (email@icloud.com, email@me.com, email@mac.com) then your Mail, Contacts, Calendars, Notes, Safari Bookmarks, Photo Stream, Reminders and iWork Documents will sync back up to your device once you re-add your email account in Settings -> “Mail, Contacts, Calendars” on your iOS device. This route has the highest chance of working as the “Other” category won’t be restored since it’s not being put back on the device from the backup.
iCloud
Login to icloud.com, check through your Mail and Contacts ect, to make sure it’s all synced. To keep all the photos that are in the Camera Roll you can have the latest 1000 pictures synced through Photo Stream. If Photo Stream is not enabled go to Settings -> Photos & Camera -> Turn on Photo Stream. The photos that are synced to Photo Stream can be downloaded back to the Camera Roll once you’ve restored.
Dropbox can also be used to backup your pictures if you’d prefer not to use Photo Stream. It will sync all your photos to dropbox.com where you can download them all back to your Camera Roll once your done restoring.
Here are a few more ways to get your photos off your iOS device if you like: Import photos from your iPod, iPhone and iPad
Paid Applications
The paid version of Diskaid will allow you to copy your Messages, Contacts, Call History, Notes, Media and Voice Memos off your iOS device onto your computer, however I don’t think it’s possible to copy them back onto the iOS device once you’ve restored; at least from my attempts I haven’t been able to.
THANK YOU so much!! I tryed everything but the restoring without the backup fixed it for me. 7.8 GB to 450 MB.
January 19, 2013 at 5:06 pmMe as well I did everything and eventually had to do a full Restore without backup. I wish Apple would make it easier to clean that other area up. Restore took Other from 2.4GB to .22GB. I had to do different restores to get it to work :( Took me about half a day all in all.
January 25, 2013 at 12:35 pmGlad to hear you and Sarah were able to get your “Other” space back down to normal.
I agree with you though, Apple should make it simpler to clean the area up.
January 29, 2013 at 4:19 pmBy everything does that mean it would erase your music as well?
June 27, 2014 at 10:43 pmYes Julia, restoring your device would also remove all your music. However, you can just sync your music back to your device once it’s done.
June 28, 2014 at 10:15 amThanks For this…… Upfront plain and Simple !!! Got my Other to normal level again.
January 29, 2013 at 3:23 pmThanks for the comment, I’m glad to hear my article was able to help you.
January 29, 2013 at 4:04 pmThank god. THis post was sooo helpful! went from 5 gig to 1.4. what a relief!
February 23, 2013 at 11:43 pmThank you for the kind words V. I’m glad it proved helpful to you.
February 23, 2013 at 11:44 pmI can’t find a way to restore without it restoring my most recent backup (which was this morning). When I followed your steps, it automatically restored from my backup. How do I restore without backup? My “Other” is taking up 6.6GB!!!
February 27, 2013 at 11:57 am6.6GB? That’s a lot! After you restore your device and it asks you to enter your Apple ID it will ask you if you want to restore from a backup or set up as a new device, select set up as a new device.
February 27, 2013 at 12:12 pmI tried to restore from back up but it woudln’t let me, it said there was not enough room on the phone to do that. I lost everything. :-(
March 3, 2013 at 5:24 pmI deleted my pictures , I ve got 4 games My Calander .I deleted as much as I can.Still comes up storage full when looking through fb.
March 16, 2013 at 7:13 pmWhen you go to Settings -> General -> Usage, what is taking up the most space? Also I read something similar on Google+ where someone else was having issuing with Facebook taking up to much space. They said they resolved the issue by deleting the Facebook app then downloading it again from the App Store.
March 16, 2013 at 7:23 pmI tried the restore from backup but nothing changed, I have like 11GB of “other” and it’s doing my head in! Currently restoring again and will try as a new device yeh?
March 22, 2013 at 8:00 pmWow, 11GB? That’s a lot! Yeah, restoring without the backup has the highest chance of working. You should defiantly see a large decrease in file size being take up by “Other”.
March 22, 2013 at 8:12 pmDamien .. Just a thanks for taking the time to go step by step & into detail as to how to fix this “other” problem. If you don’t work for apple .. They should definately hire you.
March 25, 2013 at 10:25 amThanks for taking the time to leave a comment Leah. Haha, I don’t work for Apple, thanks though I’ll take it as a complement.
March 25, 2013 at 3:36 pmI did the restore as new once already as my other was over 7.0 GB. It decreased it but within two months its back up to the same levels again. I had contacted Apple and they were of no help. They act dumb about it but som many are encountering this. And here I am for a second time. I believe I must have a virus or something in the phone and I want to get a new phone but they wont even work with me in allowing me to upgrade a bit early. I have had the Iphones since their inception and I am beyond frustrated with Apple at this point.
March 25, 2013 at 11:33 amThat’s unfortunate that you are experiencing the issue with the “Other” space again. I agree that it is something that Apple needs to recognize and fix. It’s extremely unlikely that it is a virus, if I’m not wrong, unless your device is jailbroken, it is not at risk of getting a virus as there are none that can effect the iPhone.
Have you tried any of the other solutions to reclaiming the “other” storage space beside restoring?
March 25, 2013 at 3:47 pmSo, I started by doing the minor fixes, at the moment I’m not really that concerned so I don’t want to restore my phone. I went from 5.5gb of “other” to 5.3gb. But, then, I deleted my Twitter, Echofon, and Facebook apps and for some reason my amount of “other” went from 5.3gb to 8.4gb. Can anyone explain why this might have happened?
March 30, 2013 at 10:09 amI’ll be honest with you Alex, I’ve never seen or heard of the “other” storage being increased because of deleting apps before. Have you tried installing those apps again? If so, did the “other” space get set back to it’s normal space?
March 30, 2013 at 1:48 pmI did reinstall them and my “other” reached 11.5gb and I ended up restoring my phone. I’m now at 0.51gb. I guess that in the end, that’s the only really effective way.
March 30, 2013 at 3:27 pmThat’s really strange, I have no explanation for why that would have happened. Anyways, I’m glad to hear that restoring your iPhone was successfully in removing the “other” space.
March 30, 2013 at 7:16 pmHappened to me too.
October 18, 2015 at 11:38 pmHi, thank you for the info. It’s the only place I’ve found a logical sounding answer. I have 6.9 gb of Other and have tried everything except the restore without back up. I can figure out how to re-add apps, photos, email, music, and contacts but I am worried about losing my text messages and my notes. The notes I cld email to myself before I did it, but I will be upset if I lose all my back texts. Will those be saved automatically when I text the same contacts or will they be gone forever if I restore without backup? Thanks!
March 31, 2013 at 10:08 pmYour notes are synced with iCloud and will re-sync/download back to your device once it’s setup. The text messages on the other hand will unfortunately be lost forever. Your contacts will still be there, but the actual texts will be gone.
March 31, 2013 at 10:11 pmIf I do a restore without backup and manually resync apps, will the data that was previously in those apps be lost? (ie: gamesaves, app documents, etc).
Thanks for the great article!
April 3, 2013 at 4:07 pmYes, unfortunately the app data will be lost. If your documents are synced with Dropbox or icloud (or other means) it will stream back in after logging into your account.
April 3, 2013 at 4:12 pmThat helped tremendously! Thank you!
April 27, 2013 at 9:02 amAwesome, glad to hear it helped you out :)
April 28, 2013 at 9:58 amIf I restore with back up, will I be able to keep my game saves/files?
April 29, 2013 at 9:15 pmYes. Make sure it backs up successfully then you should be good to go.
April 29, 2013 at 9:17 pmThank you! I worked perfectly for me. The “other” section is now cut down to 450 MB rather than the nearly 2 GB.
April 30, 2013 at 9:08 pmDamien,
I restored my iphone through itunes just under the “devices” tab under “version”. Should this have done the job or do I have to do a hard reset by holding the lock and home button down. I’ve never restored my phone that way…?
May 3, 2013 at 2:02 pmNope, that method works perfectly for restoring. I only added the other method in the article because I wanted to cover all the ways to restore. Right under the instructions to hard reset it mentions the other other methods (including the way you did it).
May 3, 2013 at 10:06 pmI just did the back up and restore (and then restored from back up) and lost all my music and apps, and my “other” went from 5.6 gigs (before) to 6.1 gigs (after).
May 5, 2013 at 1:45 pmMine did that too except I kept my apps. It jumped from around 3 gigs to 7.25 gigs.
May 30, 2014 at 12:30 pmTHANK YOU DAMIEN! I was racking my brain trying to figure out what all my ‘other’ stuff was, and routinely emptied out calendar reminders, notes, old sms’s, apps etc in an attempt to make some space. I sat down tonight and worked my way through your list of suggestions and am happy to say the ‘restore with backup’ option provided the results! I doubled my free space and my phone is running so much faster and smoother than before. Thank you so much for taking the time to thoroughly document these ‘fixes’
May 7, 2013 at 5:50 amI’m glad to hear my article was able to help you out. Thanks for the comment :)
May 7, 2013 at 11:24 pmI don’t use iCloud, if I “Set up as a new device” can I retrieve apps without the iCloud or is the only way to do a restore (which I’ve done and other is still there)?
May 9, 2013 at 10:04 amYou can still download all those apps again (for free) from the App Store again. The thing is though, if you don’t restore from a backup, all the app data will be lost.
May 10, 2013 at 9:52 pmIf I restore as a new device, will I lose all my contacts? I only have about 3.28 gigs of “other” but it’s still annoying, I’ve tried everything but the restore as new phone option. I tried restoring then backing up from icloud and it worked, my other was only about .38 gigs, but then I plugged it in to my computer, and the other is back at 3.28 like it was before. So, im just curious, if I restore as a new device will I lose my contacts?
May 15, 2013 at 9:14 amAre your contacts synced with iCloud? If so then they will be restored to your device once you log back into your iCloud account. Basically everything in the Settings app -> iCloud is synced online. Everything except the storage and backup will be restored.
May 15, 2013 at 9:45 amthanx man. wasted a lot of time searching on the internet re iphone storage problem. going through the steps above I realised that my storage increases step by step. great job! thanks from germany!
May 16, 2013 at 2:31 pmNone of this seemed to work for me, so I explored a bit more and dug a little deeper and eventually found the culprit. I have the iPhone 5 32gb and I was dealing with about 14 gb of “other” storage. I cleared caches of basically everything and a lot of the points suggested on this site only to clean about .5gb. I eventually installed DiskAid to get a better view of the files (very to use interface). (To note, I use iTunes Match for my music and stream 21k songs, and don’t store any music files other than what iTunes Match “downloads” to my device) I suspected that iTunes Match was responsible for the “other” storage overfill. From the DiskAid menu I navigated to Storage>Media>CloudAssets, this folder had a ton of .mp3/mp4 and .txt files in it. I’m not sure exactly what “CloudAssets” folder is, my best guess is that it’s a cache from iTunes Match onto my phone (for some reason, a bunch of unwanted songs are stored onto my phone, approx 14gb) I deleted all these files and this seemed to free up about 13gb. I wasn’t worried about losing any songs because I don’t store any songs on my phone due to iTunes match. I hope this isn’t a reoccurring problem (hopefully it doesn’t save every song I stream) and I won’t have to delete this file every so often. I will check every couple days to see if this “inventory” of “phantom stored songs” grows. Hope this helps someone.
P.S. I’ve had iTunes match for a little over a year now and the service is great because it’s the only “native’ service that works like the ipod player built in to the iphone with such an imense music library, but the service has some major setbacks (such as this), but in the end, worth the $25/year.
May 18, 2013 at 11:46 pmVery interesting teddyj7. Thank you for posting this solution. I’ve never heard of that happening before, hope its not a recurring problem. If you notice this happening again could you let me know and I’ll update the article with this solution. Again, thanks for taking the time to post this.
May 19, 2013 at 9:21 amI just found the best solution to remove all other data in my iPhone4 on iOS 6.0.1. After every new suggested way in internet I just got only fraction of this yellow bar reduced and that was frustrating. Then I thought about Cydia, because my iPhone is jailbroken. First I installed a program called CleanMyI but it also did very small part of the job. Then I found iCleaner. In couple munutes iTunes showed no yello bar at all and I’m finally happy :) Good luck!
May 19, 2013 at 12:52 pmSo if i restore to a new device, what do i do next? will i have to re jailbreak and start over? not even use my cydia back up? and once its a new device, do i just start over from scratch? seems like a pain in the ass
May 27, 2013 at 6:21 pmIf you restore your device as a new device, it will update the to latest version of iOS, which can not be jailbroken. Unfortunately yes, it would mean that all your apps would start over for scratch.
May 28, 2013 at 12:14 pmJust a thought – I had over 10G of “other” on my phone. And after trying about a million things, I decided it HAD to be something that was re-loading back onto my phone after a restore from backup. I had literally deleted every app, re-linked to my emails, and only had contacts, texts and calendar load back on. It got me thinking…what could possibly be reloading that is taking up so much space? I was texting my husband a video around the same time…and viola! Picture and video TEXTS! I scrolled up and hit “load more messages” – and all the past videos and texts are saved “somewhere” (i.e. the “other” category). I’ve been telling my husband for months that I didn’t want to restore my phone because I didn’t want to lose all my text strings (that’s something really important to me. As a mother of 3, I’m extremely forgetful, and I love to read back through texts to make sure I don’t repeat myself!) Anyway – this took HOURS, but I started manually deleting all the past videos and texts I’ve ever sent, and plugged my phone in later to find that I had almost 4G of videos and pictures linked to text conversations with my husband ALONE. Now I’m down to 4.7G in the “other” category. I still have a few more people I text regularly to go through…and I’m sure my other will come down significantly.
So keep in mind – “Other” is not necessarily corrupt data. I kept reading how my phone is probably corrupt and a restore was my only option. I wasn’t accepting that! SO, if you are like me and want to keep texts, unless you want to lost all your texts – this may be your only option! :)
Just remember – once you send a picture text DELETE IT!! Will save you this headache in the future!
May 29, 2013 at 6:14 pmThank you for the detailed comment Rachel, glad to hear you managed to get that “Other” space under control, and thanks for the tip. A few people have reported in now that media in text messages is taking up to much space. I’ve gone ahead and updated this article with information on deleting text messages to remove the “Other” space.
May 30, 2013 at 11:35 amI’ve backed up my phone and then tried to restore from that back up. However, I keep getting a message saying my iphone cannot be restored because there isn’t enough space. Any ideas?
June 12, 2013 at 3:40 pmRestore iphone back to factory settings. THEN restore from your back up.
hope this helps.
June 14, 2013 at 10:17 amI’m so angry. I’ve done everything except restore, and I don’t want to have to do that because I’ve had issues with it in the past. meanwhile, the other category takes up most of the space on my iPad.
June 18, 2013 at 10:19 pmI’ve restored this way and that way, left and right… still other is taking up space! iPod 4. Never had this issue before. In a panic, I was getting everthing set up to go on a really long plane ride with the kids. NEED THIS iPod AS DISTRACTION! Franticly yours…
June 23, 2013 at 7:55 pmFANTASTIC!! Just did most of these first steps and was able to cut my “other category” in half – from about 6G down to 3G. Thank you so much!
June 30, 2013 at 8:11 pmGlad to hear it worked for you. Thanks for the feedback.
July 2, 2013 at 12:06 pmI deleted 3 mail accounts, my personal yahoo, my work gmail and another gmail account that I believe I had to set up when I started with my iPhone (and have never used). This apparently was the mail account associated with every event I added to the calendar icon on my phone (I did not realize this at the time) When I try to add this account back, it says my password or user name is not correct. I have tried every password I can think of, nothing works. So I have lost all of the appointments and reminders I had set in the calendar. I did not realize that the calendar was even associated with a mail account to begin with. Any help ideas??
(I did go to gmail and reset my password, but that’s not working either.)
Thanks (your tips did help free up some space!)
July 13, 2013 at 4:54 amHey there Gretchen. If it was an email address you setup while setting up your iPhone then it was most likely an iCloud account, not a Gmail account. Apple uses iCloud to sync your reminders, notes and calendars. If you don’t have one it tries to get you to create one when you first setup your iPhone.
To reset your iCloud account go to http://icloud.com
July 13, 2013 at 1:48 pmicleaner did the job PERFECTLY!!!!!!! I’ve been trying to figure out this problem for a good while… went from 100mb free to 5gigs free!!!! if you read these comments THANK YOU SO MUCH
July 27, 2013 at 12:10 amHello Lina, I read every comment. Thanks for leaving a comment and letting us know that iCleaner worked for you, appreciate the feedback.
July 27, 2013 at 10:19 amWow ICLEANER is the best, 2,2 gb free more :O
Thank you very much
August 4, 2013 at 7:17 amGreat post.
August 8, 2013 at 4:15 pmI agree, very good post – nice layout of the options.. Restore from back-up reduced my Other category by 80%.
August 18, 2013 at 2:40 pmGlad to hear it worked for you Sig. Thanks for the feedback.
August 18, 2013 at 2:41 pmWill iCleaner only work on a “jailbroken” device?
August 19, 2013 at 4:44 amYes, your device will need to be jailbroken in order to use iCleaner. Jailbreak guide: http://appducate.com/2013/02/jailbreak-ios-6-on-iphone-5-ipod-ipad-4-mini/
August 19, 2013 at 9:54 amThanks. I went through all your suggestions (skipped iCleaner). A full restore (not from a backup) seems to have solved my problem with the excessive memory being used by “other.” Thanks for the excellent post on this topic.
August 19, 2013 at 4:26 pmTo quote the tv series “IT crowd”: Have you tried turning it off and on again?
I use my iPad to watch movies, and use manual update via iTunes to copy from my Mac to the iPad. Normally deleting videos manually, turns the memory the mp4 files occupied into “Other” in the memory bar. Rebooting the iPad fixes the problem, but I have to say, that Apple ought to fix it in iOs. It’s been a known bug for a looooong time now…
August 25, 2013 at 10:00 amThis is really weird. After trying everything in the article, I finally did a restore and set up my iPhone as a new device. There was initially no space claimed by music, pictures etc. and the “other” said 568mb. As I started loading some songs onto the phone, some apps, some pictures and some books the “other” started to increase, too, and is now nearly 2gb. It’s still sycing but it looks like I am still stuck after all with something like 2 and a half gb of “other” in the end. Everything went fine, except that the sync aborted twice. And then starded syncing again. I was told the iphone settings had been changed (though I didn’t do anything anywhere while syncing) and iTunes asked me to confirm the changes, which I did. Can that be the reason for this disproportionate growth of other? I read somewhere “other” might contain leftovers from aborted syncs. In the meantime “other” has grown to 2.44gb. I’m getting kind of despered on this. I know the article has been a while, but any suggestions are welcome. Thank you.
September 19, 2013 at 11:41 amHey there Nik, it does sound like it could be caused by the aborted/failed sync. Did you try the PhoneClean method listed above? One of its options for cleaning is clearing out any junk files that weren’t synced properly.
September 19, 2013 at 11:48 amHi Damien, thank you for your kind and fast reply. I tried another PhoneClean run (the first I did, before I restored). PhoneClean tells me after the scan, that I will be able to reclaim 6.13GB – which is actually the free space on the phone according to iTunes. After cleaning the “other” is still very big, now 3.42GB. And the free space is even less, now 5.91GB. Some additional information. iPhone 4, 16GB. What I did yesterday: Upgraded to iOs7. Didn’t like it – fat to slow (which I could have guessed or read up on if I had followed my usual “proceed with caution” routine) some things important to me work either in a different way or not at all. So I downgraded again to iOs6.1.3 following this description: http://www.imore.com/how-downgrade-ios-7-beta-back-ios-6. So the sequence of events is: Upgrading to iOs7, downgrading to iOs6.1.3 with restore from BackUp (big other), followed all of your tipps above up to the restore as new device (using the iOs6.1.3 firmware again, reinstalling apps, music and pictures manually, winding up with this big other. To find a solution to my problem might be important not only to me but to others as well, who downgraded from 7 to 6. There are a couple of things I can still try: 1) Removing step by step Music, Fotos, Apps. See if that changes anyting at all. 2. Restore again to new device, then installing manually one App after the other in order to see which one might cause the trouble. Same with pictures and music. 3. Give up on iOs6 and go with 7. See what happens then to other. This will take some time, but if I find anything worthwile, I’ll post again here. Meanwile thank’s for letting me know if you have any further ideas on this.
September 20, 2013 at 2:38 amPersonally I’d recommend your 3rd option. Updating to iOS 7, and then your option 2 (including the part about setting up as a new device). Setting up as a new device will give you the least headache when dealing with the “Other” storage.
Hope it works out for you.
September 21, 2013 at 11:42 amHi Damien, thank you for your fast reply. Yes, option 3 solved it.
But I did first option 1 and 2, as I had described them above in the thread. First I deinstalled one App after the other which left the “other” constantly 3.46GB. Then I checked the phone first with PhoneClean, then with iPhone Explorer, mounting the phone as disk, which did not lead to results. Nothing to see there even with “show invisible files” turned on. Next I tried to restore the phone to iOS6, but in the meantime Apple has stopped to sign iOS versions prior to 7. So I restored to 7 and as a new device. Then I installed one app after the other and music, pictures, books seperatly.
Interesting thing is: the empty phone showed “other” to be 615.3MB. Installing one thing after the other increased it to finally 800GB. The biggest single steps were when I synchronized mail accounts, changed some preferences and the installment of WheatherPro, a wheather app. Some increase was due to the import of fotos. But increasing was not a linear process. Sometimes after installing something, it went down a little bit.
As for performance now (iPhone 4, iOS7): much better than the first time I installed it – just about like iOS6, but it seems that now the battery drains faster. But this is a rather subjective judgment and is taken only from a day out yesterday when I used the phone quite a lot.
Thank you for helping out – I did get to your recommending in the end. But time was not wasted. I learned a lot in the process which will come in handy some other time.
Nik
September 23, 2013 at 3:14 amNik,
I had the EXACT same problem! iPhone 4, 8gb, cdma… I downgraded to iOS 6 after installing iOS 7 and truly disliking it. Also, iOS 7 makes my phone overheat (I even followed some steps I found on the internet to no avail). I really do not want to update to iOS 7, but that seems to be my only option. I have 3gb+ being taken up by “other.” Such a headache….sigh….
September 23, 2013 at 9:38 amAlaina,
It seems that Apple leaves us with little choice but to update to iOS7 sooner or later. Already there are new versions of apps that don’t work on iOS6 anymore. As for the design, yes it’s not what I was hoping for. But over the years I’ve gotten used to so many different designs in this whole computerworld, I think I’ll get used to this one as well. And for me there is no way going back anyway since trying to install the firmware of iOS6 is calling back to Apple over the net and then they say: no go.
Performance, overheating, batterylife: I can only recommend what Damien tells everybody here. Restore to new device.
And my own litte advice: At first just install the apps that are really necessary for you. I guess you don’t have to do it one by one as I did. Having lacked the caution at the beginning of this whole install, uninstall, install, restore thing I’m now a bit overcautios, but it also did help me to understand which of my apps add to “other”, though I can’t see why).
After now 4 days on my “restored to new device iOS7 iPhone4” I did not experience any serious drawbacks. Performence might be a tiny little bit slower, but that can easily be a subjective perception. As for batterylife I can’t say much yet. Overheating: Ever since I had an iPhone I found there are times when it really heats up and other times when it doesn’t. No matter the iOS. There must be reasons for this, but I don’t have the slightest idea what they might be.
At least I’v got rid of the “other” problem – for the time being.
One more thing. I have 16GB and I always leave some space free, usually the recommended one-fifth to one-sixth. I’ve read and heard that filling your phone up to the brim can be one of the causes for overheating and other problems. But of corse that leaves you with even less space on your 8GB even if you can get rid of a high “other”.
Good luck – Nik
September 24, 2013 at 5:30 amThank you so much! Clearing safari cookies and cache worked for me. It was so frustrating and your advice was so straightforward. Thanks again
September 21, 2013 at 11:31 amGlad it was able to help you out Helen. Thanks for the feedback.
September 21, 2013 at 11:32 am… one more thing as to iCleaner. You don’t need a jailbroken phone anymore. It’s now on the Appstore: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/icleaner/id599923235?mt=8
September 23, 2013 at 3:19 amI did as you suggested and deleted my not needed reading list pages. It made no difference.
September 28, 2013 at 11:21 amMy issue is i don’t have the “other”. Mine is the documents and data section which is taking up almost 6GB and i have nothing on the phone.. I have limited apps.. I do have music, photos, and small amount of videos and only have 6 GB left of a 32GB device (27 GB you know the deal..lol) What can i do to reduce this?
October 11, 2013 at 11:06 pmThanks for the iCleaner tip. It bricked my iPod!!! No just kidding, lol. It brought the other category from 6.5 to 1.47 GB :) And a bit of manual work brought that down to 1.3 GB. I can live with 1.3/28 :) thanks.
October 16, 2013 at 1:27 pmGlad to hear it worked for you. Thanks for the feedback.
Gave me a little scare with the brinking iPod thing. Don’t do that lol.
October 16, 2013 at 1:46 pmThank you! Thank you! Thank you! I went through your entire list and the option that worked was the Restore from backup. I went from 5.64 GB to 564.9 MB. That’s just crazy! You would think a company as progressive as Apple would not have this issue and have a solution. The sad thing is I am very computer literate as I am a business systems analyst and EVERYTHING I was doing on mine own short of a restore wasn’t remedying the issue. Just crazy!
I’ve bookmarked your page and will probably be back.
October 23, 2013 at 10:24 amThanks for the comment Christina, I’m glad my article was able to help you out.
October 23, 2013 at 10:31 amMy other folder is at 31.4 GB full!!!
November 3, 2013 at 1:13 amthanks for helping me get rid of 2.6 GB i only have an 8 GB device so 2.6 is valueable. I found the site really helpful.
November 15, 2013 at 7:00 pmI’m now stuck. iPod is requiring the original A/C wall adapter to complete the restore……
December 1, 2013 at 2:15 pmThanks for all the posts. I had over 20GB of “Other” on 64GB 5s running ios7. When I got my new phone I restored from backup. After using some of the utilities described here, there seemed to be a giant group of iTunes files that wasn’t showing up in Music. I determined the only way to fix this was to do a clean restore. That got rid of the giant Other, but it was a pain in the **s getting all my apps back in the right place. Sadly lost my candy crush progress. I was up to level 76!
Problem solved, with a little inconvenience and time.
December 5, 2013 at 6:33 pmAnyone know if the phoneclean really worked, the icleaner not available in my country.
December 8, 2013 at 12:49 pmI used PhoneClean to remove 2.74GB of garbage files from your iPhone. If you can’t use it in your country, try other tools like Fireebok iLike.
December 17, 2013 at 6:53 pmI have an issue on the other it took up 10GB exactly and im trying to delete some documents from the usage but that didnt help so i downloaded this program and i want to know how do you use it and its my first time and i want to put more music and movies and games on it still but please help me on step by step please thanks!
December 10, 2013 at 11:52 pmHi Damien,
Just found your article after trying for days to fix a new problem on my iphone 5 (os7, 64GB). All of a sudden, after updating to the latest iTunes version, some music wouldn’t sync from my laptop library, some music would remain gray on the iphone, and then ultimately I could’t synce and was told that I didn’t have enough space. I’ve tried most every fix expect restore. I unchecked all music and did a sync to empty my phone and then tred to resync with the music checked. This worked in the past for my older ipod. But now my other category keeps growing and growing after each sync! 10GB, 17GB, 18GB and now 20GB. It’s crazy. I’ve synced only a few music folders now, because putting all the music back won’t work. I have enough room for music, but for Other. Clearly, this is why I couldn’t sync all my music in the first place.
Can you offer any help. I’m concerned about a restore now that I’ve monkeyed with all the music. I did go through and try everything in your article. Any suggestions? I’m desperate. Need my music.
Thanks
December 16, 2013 at 8:50 amHey there Betrix, sounds like the increase in “Other” space is being added by corrupt syncing data. You may be able to find a solution to your syncing problems here: http://appducate.com/2012/12/troubleshoot-an-ios-device-that-wont-sync-in-itunes/
Ultimately however, your best bet is to actually restore your device. This will fix your “Other” space and I can almost guarantee that it will also fix your syncing issue. It will also probably save you time/a headache to just restore in this case.
December 17, 2013 at 10:46 amThx, Damien. That’s what I’m afraid of, and I dread the restore like getting hot daggers in my eyes. That said, I did tinker with Phone Clean as you suggested and was able to save some space, 1.7 GB. But when you look at the fact that Other was 20GB, that’s nothing. An odd thing happened however. I have 13GB of music. After phonecleaning, I synced, and suddenly had only 10GB of Other, 27GB of music and only 1GB free. So, my music has doubled, even though the iphone itself says 13GB of music. I’m in the process of repairing tons of media files with Phone clean. It’s working, but slow. So far 2 GB repaired from just a few dozen files. I’d like to try this and if that doesn’t do it, I’ll try restore. But when you suggest restore, you mean “restore iphone” under devices, not “restore backup” under backups, correct? (I tried your other tips in the syncing link you sent). Thanks again, you’re a lifesaver. Apple needs a stern letter about this.
December 18, 2013 at 6:59 amThis article was really helpful, I had nearly 2GB of “Other” (I have an 8GB ipod) and cut it down to 1.22 by deleting the browser cache and deleting and reinstalling my email accounts. I downloaded the PhoneClean programme to try and get rid of some more but after telling me there was over 500MB it could get rid off it wanted me to buy it, most of it was from app caches, is there any way I can delete this myself?
December 30, 2013 at 4:11 pmthx Icleaner helped
December 31, 2013 at 9:11 amThanks, My IPad was jailbroken so I just downloaded ICleaner and it worked great!!! Except when I try to do it and it frees more space but it says its not recomended to do it again because ICleaner is 7.0.2 and my IPad is 7.0.4. It just says wait for update but im pretty sure it will work when the update comes out and other then that it works PERFECT!!!
December 31, 2013 at 9:17 amThe PhoneClean no longer allows you to do anything for free.
February 2, 2014 at 10:47 amIt woked thanx i have .35gb now… How much would you say is a normal amount of other space to have?
February 5, 2014 at 11:54 pmHey there Sergio, I’m not entirely sure what a normal sized “Other” space amount is. However, I’d say .35gb seems a normal and negligible amount. That’s currently around were I’m sitting on my iPhone. Glad to hear it worked for you.
February 5, 2014 at 11:59 pmAny advice on how to get rid of the Docs and Data? Mine is literally bigger than my music and photos COMBINED. I only have about 250-300 photos on my camera, Ive deleted about 400 in the last month yet Im still at my max storage. How can you delete photos that were saved to your iCloud?
Also, I downloaded the PhoneClean, but its not free at all. They want $20 for a year subscription. Your article says its free?
February 23, 2014 at 9:42 pmHi Damien, firstly thanks a lot for helping so many people getting rid of this junk. Now, in my case, i had like 4 gigs of Other data. I cleaned 600 mb with phone clean while other 1.4 gb with Icleaner pro but I’m still left with around 2 Gb of OTHER data. Mine is Ipad air 7.0.4 JB with evasion. Let me know what else can I do. I fear to restore it since its JB. Thanks a lot
March 3, 2014 at 7:17 amThank you for so many helpful tips. I have been googling the “other” issue and read many other articles which would only give one or two tips, sometimes that didn’t even apply to me. So I appreciate all the time you put into compiling all of this. I want to let you know that as of now (March 2014) the PhoneClean option does not seem to be free anymore. In your article you mention a free and a paid version. I downloaded it to my PC (that part is free) and ran a preliminary scan (that’s free) but in order to “solve these issues” I must pay :( Disappointing, because my 2 yo 8 gig iPhone 4 is sadly maxed out these days. I will keep searching around…one commenter said that iCleaner is now available for non-jb phones…I will look into this! Thanks again for all the info.
March 8, 2014 at 12:06 amThank you for the comment Jennifer. I’ve updated the article to reflect the fact that PhoneClean now needs to be purchased before it will clear out any junk files.
I hope you can get your “Other” space under management. Let me know if I can be of any assistance.
March 8, 2014 at 7:05 pmFirst place where they give me solutions different to buying PhoneClean.. It’s incredible that you may have to buy a software to correct something itunes isn’t doing right.
Rebooting my Itouch, deleting everything inside ApplicationArchives and deleting mail attachments and messages released almost 3gb :D
About the mail thing, if you’re on a jailbroken device and don’t wanna do delete your accounts and add them again you can just go to /var/mobile/Library/Mail. Go inside your mail folder(s) (something like “IMAP-….@server.com”, look for the Messages and Attachment folders inside and clean them.
Thanks for the advices!
March 26, 2014 at 7:49 pmhey, others is taking atmost my 4gb how to get rid of it by using phoneclean free of cost ??
help!!!!
May 14, 2014 at 7:06 amunfortunately phone clean did not work well for us — after buying it.
first of all it lost the user’s camera roll. very uncool
and then it lost all photos in the messages history.
there are no instructions of any detail, though it seems like there are no options besides pressing a couple buttons.
anyway, that’s 30$ lost for us, and still many gigs in the OTHER.
May 28, 2014 at 10:41 amThats unfortunate Jeffn, have you tried contacting the owners of Phone Clean? They may be able to offer your some assistance.
Did you make any backups before running the app?
May 28, 2014 at 10:45 amThere is another whole side to this problem. The article is great for one aspect, clear excess junk from the PHONE in order to free up space.
But a huge problem is when the iPhone reports it has plenty of space (via Settings>General>Usage) but it is iTunes on the Mac side that is complaining about “Other”!
My iPhone 4s with 64GB reports that 47.3 GB is in use, with 9.8 GB available. That’s all well and good, and reasonable, and a large music library is showing and available on the phone.
But in iTunes on the Mac, with Music>Sync Music UNchecked, iTunes reports: “9.75 GB Free” and 47.38 GB in “Other”, yes “Other”! If I try to check that I want Music synced, it reports that there isn’t enough room.
It sure looks like iTunes on the Mac is categorizing EVERYTHING on the phone as “Other”, thus thinks that any attempt to sync more is in ADDITION to what it thinks is “Other”.
So, the problem isn’t how to clean iup the phone, but rather how to whack iTunes over the head.
Suggestions?
THANK YOU!
June 26, 2014 at 1:36 pmSOLUTION FOUND:
This occurs when the problem is not REAL material, but garbage stuck in Other within the perview of iTunes on the computer, and there is nothing wrong with what’s presently on the iPhone itself.
Reading around, it appears this is what’s happening: There are some incredibly LONG delays in the sync in certain cases, but especially with larger capacity devices. The message is “Waiting for [whatever] to complete”. Since it can go for an hour or longer, it’s not unreasonable for the user the force quit iTunes and try again. But that apparently corrupts the process, and leaves debris in “Other”. In my case, I wound up with 47.38 gigs in “Other”. As a result, iTunes is unable to sync what you really want to your iPhone because it thinks there isn’t enough room because of that huge “Other” material. To avoid this situation in the first place, the conclusion is to go on a bike ride, have lunch, or go to bed and return to this in the morning, and the “Waiting” message should eventually be gone.
But if the corruption has occurred, and a giant “Other” is the result, then the solution is this: DO NOT REMOVE THE CORD BETWEEN THE COMPUTER AND PHONE. Power down the phone (hold down top button until you have an option to power down). The reference to the phone in your iTunes display wiill disappear. Wait a minute, then power up the phone again. The phone will reappear in the iTunes list, but this time the “Other” will be back to a resonable size.
June 27, 2014 at 6:41 amVery interesting Kevin, I’ll have to looking into that. And thanks for taking the time to post the solution that worked for you, I’m sure someone who’s having the same issue will find this helpful.
June 28, 2014 at 10:17 amI actually had 9GB in my other category!!! I have NO idea how! I don’t have many apps at all. I tried many things to get rid of the other data, but I just ended up restoring my phone which took no time at all. I should have done that in the first place!! As long as your phone is backed up, everything will restore to exactly how it was before. I was getting storage full messages all of the time and every time I wanted to take one picture I had to delete about 10 pictures, NO EXAGERATION! I now have 11GB available!! I am soooo happy! Thank you!
July 8, 2014 at 9:22 pmGlad to hear that Christina, thanks for the kind words :)
July 9, 2014 at 7:39 pmI have 17GB of other. How do I back up/ restore so it keeps my apps, contacts, photos and messages but nothing else? I can sync music back on easy but I do not want to lose my messages? thanls
August 6, 2014 at 4:11 pmOne can free up some space by deleting app caches (major constituent of the dreaded “other” data) using ifunbox…..WORKS FOR NON JB devices. Give it a try
October 4, 2014 at 12:15 pmI followed the steps in the main article right unto the point of doing restore with/without backup, as I’ve done that before, but wanted further analysis into how and why the “Other” took up so much space.
I used the PhoneClean mac application, but was rather deflated that it could only muster a measly reclaim of 500MB, out of the 4GB occupied within “Other” category.
I also searched for this iFunBox mac application, which is free, and works ok as a file viewer into the iPhone 5S 16GB. Looking for keywords in the file directories, I saw this one:
Raw File System > CloudAssets. There were a lot of mp3 and m4a files, which I recognise as music files, probably my iTunes Match which sometimes I noticed they attempt to play but the Music app eventually skips over. Some corruption on iTunes Match? Maybe… but I selected all, and right-click Deleted them. Did a Sync on iTunes to refresh that view on the “Other”…. I regained just over 1GB. Sweet! I’ll report back if I see anything else that I can delete without impact.
November 2, 2014 at 8:49 amI spotted something I never realised before: iFunBox has revealed to me that for every photo that you’re adjusting or editing, the Photos app is effectively keeping a duplicate copy of it to track the adjustments made.
Logic is sound, in that if you cropped a photo too much, you would like to have a UNDO function to revert back. The additional data is effectively doing that – Keeps the original as well as the adjusted ones.
Downside is that you’re almost doubling up on storage use.
Eg. Photo image file called IMG_8783.JPG.
This photo is seen via iFunBox at: Media > DCIM > 108APPLE, file size 1.8MB.
I browsed around and saw that also in this location:
Media > PhotoData > Mutations > DCIM > 108APPLE > IMG_8783.JPG > Adjustments, and found two files:
IMG_8783.JPG, filesize 905KB (because I cropped it)
also file called FullSizeRender.jpg, file size 896KB.
So for one photo of 1.8MB, I have a total of 3.6MB space used. Multiply by a few hundred/thousand photos, and you got a lot of storage space used up…..
November 2, 2014 at 9:15 amLast revelation of the night before bed:
Experimented with iTunes Match.
Having cleared out the MEDIA > CloudAssets, I then started to play some songs via Wifi using iTunes Match.
For every song being played and streamed, a local cache of the song is saved into Media > CloudAssets as expected.
I then refreshed a sync with iTunes to see if these iTunes Match cached songs are reflected in the MUSIC category, or OTHERS.
Surprisingly, it is NOT going into the MUSIC category! That remained as 704MB, of locally downloaded songs… ie. acting exactly as it would if it were a classic iPod with internal hard disk, and has nothing to do with online downloaded files.
It appears that iTunes Match cached songs are lazily being categorised into “Other”…. which wouldn’t be a bad thing if iTunes application or even the iOS itself would allow easy visibility and management of this!
November 2, 2014 at 9:30 amOne more thing: with iOS 8, there’s a new Photo Album section called “RECENTLY DELETED”. Effectively a trash bin for iOS photos and videos, so you have a last-chance to recover it in case kids accidentally deleted precious moments.
Obviously the issue here is that big videos lasting 1min take up maybe 100MB or more. On HD 1080p resolution, the file sizes can get really huge. And even if you hit the trash bin button on the photo or video, its only relocated to the “Recently Deleted” photo album. You need to repeat the procedure there to truly get rid of it. Something to bear in mind for some folks that while it didn’t reduce the “Other” capacity category, it does help to reduce the “Photos” category.
November 2, 2014 at 9:00 amAWESOME!! Best advice out there and it worked like a charm!!
Thanks!!
October 11, 2014 at 8:58 pmThanks for the feedback. Glad you found it helpful.
October 18, 2014 at 12:44 pmDamian- It looks like a Restore is in order for my iPhone… However, I am running iOS 7 and I don’t want to upgrade to iOS8 at this time (too many reports of WiFi issues…).
When I click the Restore button in iTunes it says that it will restore AND update my iPhone. Does that mean that it will update it to iOS8? If so, is there a way to Restore without upgrading the iOS version?
December 23, 2014 at 12:45 pmReally good article this. A few things are amiss for me though.
I started with 3.99GB in other and by deleting Cache, gmail and texts got it down to 3.28GB… so quite a long way to go. I am trying to avoid the whole backup / restore process if I can so thought I’d try PhoneClean…. and I can’t find it.
Also – I can’t find the itunes backup option using the instructions but I think that is because mine is already backed up to the cloud.
I wonder if apps like sheets might be storing some massive spreadsheets somewhere but can’t find a way to get rid of them.
December 30, 2014 at 4:57 amOne-click solution is FonePaw software, download the mobile program to save your storage space for iPhone and iPad.
January 23, 2015 at 6:59 amthis was so helpful! i was able to free up about 3GB by doing everything except a restore! thank you so much!
February 12, 2015 at 12:29 amMost of your article may only apply to more “modern” devices. Those with iPod classics should also remember that their iPOD will store any kind of data completely separately from that displayed in iTunes as an external hard drive. I had completely forgotten I had put nearly 10Gb of work files to take home and backup on my iPOD about 3 years ago. This appeared as “Other” but was otherwise inaccessible. Go to the finder and click on the iPAD icon and delete files as you would an external HDD.
This could save people from resetting their iPOD and rebuilding their library.
February 15, 2015 at 5:45 pmThanks for this Damien. I had to do ‘system restore and restore backup’ and, following your clear instructions, it worked like a charm. I went from less than 500MB of storage space to 24.4GB available.
February 20, 2015 at 4:59 amSO – on IOS 8.1.3 on the 4S….the text messages have a ‘details’ link that lists ALL the PHOTOS.
I guess I know what’s in the ‘other’ space!
Thanks you for the help!
April 9, 2015 at 1:48 pmThanks for the wonderful article. I simply did the browser cache delete and gained back over 2 gigs of ‘Other’. It was at 2.83Gig.
In the past I did the restore option but I really dislike sitting for several hours to be sure everything is as it was. I download books and magazines from JW.ORG and those items can be highlighted as I study. Restore loses those items and I have to re-download.
I am on OS 8.1.3. THANKS again!
April 25, 2015 at 8:28 amThanks so much! I think it was all the iTunes backups and maybe email junk that was taking up so much “Other” space. In a blink of an eye I’m back to having 20.57 GB of free space (I was full before) – so again, thanks!
May 20, 2015 at 7:35 amPhotos > All Photos > Album
delete all the photos in the “Deleted Recently” category
June 12, 2015 at 10:02 pmHello there. I’ve come across this problem with various generations of the iPhone and IOS. I’ve always just done a hard reboot (hold home button and power button until apple logo appears). Make sure it’s not connected to your computer or iTunes. Once it’s powered back up connect it to iTunes and all the “other” is gone. Super easy and simple. No deleting files, restoring, or using other software. Give it a try. Hope it helps.
June 14, 2015 at 1:59 amI deleted cookies is there anyway to get what I deleted back I had an app saved with my password
June 15, 2015 at 3:44 amThanks a ton it works but time eater. Just do it if you have enough time for it… Else dont even think about it… Thank you pal :)
July 4, 2015 at 10:45 amI have 15 GB of space turn into “other” today right after I set my iphone to not synch music in order to make room for the most recent update. I updated the phone after having deleted more or less everything else as well, but the “other” still won’t let go. BAcked up and restored from backup, it won’t budge. Deleted backups from itunes and backed up again. Still same. manually cleared messages from many apps, delted most apps. Cleared all old text messages, still 15 GB of “other”.
I am suspecting that when I desynched the music, all the music already on my phone became corrupt and turned into “other” data. I thought itunes should delete the old music but the space corresponds to how much space my music used. it should be noted I had music set to “automatically fill available space” before this, and every single time I synched the phone I got about 200 error messages (because of lack of space) so the phone was never good at guesstimating how much space it had.
August 14, 2015 at 4:49 amI never even looked at it like that….. my 21gb of other is almost identical in size to the 21gb of music on my phone. Have you figured out how to get rid of it?
November 24, 2015 at 9:16 amif i delete the yahoo mail app…. will all my email files disappear.. or will it all still be there when I use just the web version?
October 12, 2015 at 9:37 pmYour Yahoo emails are saved on their servers, you can view them online or just download the app again and your emails will download back to your phone.
October 12, 2015 at 9:46 pmThank you… much appreciated!!
Just trying to free up space on my phone:) this will hopefully help:)
October 12, 2015 at 10:01 pmMy other is 21gb. I have a 64GB iPhone and its almost half of my available space. The steps above removed about 1gb from it. the only thing that I haven’t tried is setting up as new. The phone is only a month old, so I assume that this would just be an ongoing process of setting up as new every time it gets large, and i’d rather find out where exactly this enormous amount of data is being tied up…… Any ideas?
November 24, 2015 at 9:10 amThanks for suggesting PhoneClean. I was able to reclaim 2.6 GB from my ‘others’ folder using it. I was able to use its quick clean option free of cost. I didn’t have to pay anything for reclaiming 2.6 GB. Only the Pro version is chargeable .
January 13, 2016 at 11:10 pm