Well, I've noticed that this 'other' section has gotten quite large recently and I'm not sure what it is. I mean, it can't be that important, so I want to delete it.
You can't delete all of "Other". The "Other" section contains iPhone settings, email messages with the iPhone's email client, SMS messages, Notes created on the iPhone, contact information, calendar events, recent calls, phone favorites, Safari cache, etc. but it shouldn't be that large.
More than likely this is music or video transferred from your computer to the iPhone which was not labeled and color coded properly.
A Restore is the only way to eliminate the additional but you will not eliminate the entire "Other" section which is impossible. Mine is just under 200MB or so but this can fluctuate depending on the overall size of all the data contained there.
Web clips are part of the iPhone's settings and included with the iPhone's backup file and a small part of the proper "Other" iPhone section but contact information and calendar events are not included with the iPhone's backup file.
Contact information and calendar events are designed to be synced with a supported application or applications on your computer. Since you are running XP, you can sync contact information with Outlook Express but calendar events can be synced with Outlook 2003 or 2007 only on a Windows PC or you can sync contact information and calender events with Outlook 2003 or 2007.
If you aren't syncing this data with a supported application or applications on your computer, this data will be lost with a Restore. The iPhone's backup file stores iPhone settings - including web clips created on the Home screen, SMS messages, Notes created with the Notes application, cities tracked with the weather widget, stocks tracked with the stocks widget, Maps bookmarks, YouTube bookmarks, alarms, world clock settings, phone favorites and recent calls. Photos captured by the iPhone are also included with the backup file but not something I'd depend on. If there are any photos available on your iPhone that were captured by the iPhone, you should import these photos to your computer before doing a restore.
There have been several discussions about the large "other" showing up recently in ITunes. We've pretty well pinned it down to an itunes 7.6 artifact since everyone's 'other' was only about 20 meg in itunes 7.5. The truth is probably that "other" files were probably always on the iphone, but itunes 7.6 just shows them and itunes 7.5 didn't.
I agree that it contains all settings, notes, etc. but i'm guessing that now with 7.6, it shows the space the OS is taking in the flash memory as well.
edit: 660mb is a bit larger than folks saw though when going to itunes 7.6. most were around 200mb.
Sorry but you can't say "Other" for "everyone" was only 20 MB with the previous iTunes version. It wasn't for me ever except maybe after first turning it on which gradually grew over time as email and other data stored there grew in size.
OS X on the iPhone takes up 500 MB or so and my Other is currently under 200 MB so nice try but wrong guess.
Restoring corrects this when it does occur so this also changes this theory and guess.
My "Other" is at 285 MB. I would think that "Other" is everything that isn't Photos or Audio....obviously. All contacts, calendar events, email settings, bookmarks, etc. would be classified as "Other".....as Allan mentioned.
sorry, didn't mean to imply that I surveyed everyones 'other' size. All I do know is that I went from around 20 to 200 meg after going from I tunes 7.5 to 7.6 and so did many others.
Not sure but I've always had more than 20 MB of Other and I don't recall but the Other size may have increased since installing the current iTunes version but I also recall the size being under 200 MB or so prior to installing 7.6.
This number will fluctuate depending on how many email accounts are accessed with the iPhone being a biggie especially when accessing a POP account depending on the number and size of sent messages stored locally and the number and size of messages available in a POP account's Inbox mailbox.
OS X takes up 500 MB or so which is not included with Other - it is part of the 700 MB or so from the advertised capacity along with taking out the decimal equivalent used for advertising storage capacity which is not the actual.
Actually yes you can say it was about 20 MB. on a empty, restored iPhone in iTunes 7.5, the "other" category is about 20 MB on every iPhone. In iTunes 7.6 the "other" category is suddenly showing around 180-200 MB, even if the phone is completely wiped with a full restore. iTunes 7.6 is showing at least some parts of the OS as other, which may or may not be on purpose. Because 7.6.1 has been released and the same thing is happening, it seems as though this may have been done on purpose by apple and might have to do with the SDK. Also, the OS of the iPhone is not 500 MB, it's less than 300. The iPhone has 2 partitions, Root and Media. The Root patition houses the OS and it's total capacity is around 300 MB. The Media partition is around 7 GB and holds media.
i had about 6 gigs of movies and tv shows and songs on my iphone, and all of the sudden its all gone but the 6 gigs still appears in the Other section. what do i do
You need to do a Restore for that problem. It happened to me once - something goes wrong with a sync and suddenly everything's in Other. On the general point my Other hovers around 200-210 meg. Must admit I thought that the big jump came with the 1.1.3 firmware upgrade on the phone, but then again maybe it was the iTunes upgrade.......
