Apps taking up way too much space

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Level 1

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Apps taking up way too much space

I have a pretty fair amount of apps installed on my iPhone, and when I go to windows explorer the files themselves only take up ~230MB and I only have maybe 2/3rds of them actualy on my phone. But when I plug it in and update it says that apps are taking up 388MB and other 236MB which is impossible because ALL the apps don't take up that much, let alone the ones I have installed. Any ideas how to fix this? I want to add more music but this is causing my phone to have next to no available space.

Windows XP

Posted on Oct 2, 2008 7:15 PM

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Answer 1

Oct 2, 2008 7:23 PM in response to Haitch De

Not sure about the apps size discrepancy unless any data created and maintained by an app is stored with the apps designation with the iPhone.

"Other" stores data such as iPhone settings, email account setup info, SMS messages, notes, visual voicemail messages, recent calls, email and email attachments stored locally and cached messages, Safari history/cookies/cache, address book contacts and photos assigned to contacts, calendar events, and I believe data created and stored by 3rd party applications, but this may be included with the Apps size designation on the iPhone.

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Answer 2

DaVBMan

Level 6

9,280 points

Oct 3, 2008 4:43 AM in response to Haitch De

That .ipa file is like a compressed package of the file...when it installs it decompresses and creates it's data structure (more than one file and perhaps data files that get created when ran). So no, the size of the installs on your computer will not match total real size once installed on the iPhone.

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Answer 3

Haitch De Author

Level 1

0 points

Oct 3, 2008 11:56 AM in response to DaVBMan

Ok, that makes sense and I can see how some of the apps I have (i.e. games) would take more then the .ipa file. So would it be safe to assume that the only way to free up this space is to remove all but the most necessary apps, or will it still show up as the space being in use (I only ask because I can easily see orphaned files and settings being still being saved somewhere taking up space).

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Answer 4

Oct 3, 2008 12:12 PM in response to Haitch De

There should not be any orphaned files when deleting an app as is so common when doing the same with Windows. Except for installing Microsoft applications on a Mac (which installs junk all over the hard drive as is done with Windows but not as bad), the majority of OS X applications are installed as a bundle and self contained. There are some exceptions, but to delete an app on a Mac, all that is required is drag the app to the Trash and empty the Trash. The only item that remains is the application's preference file which takes up very little hard drive space and causes no problems if not deleted with the application.

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