ios 13.5.1 storage issues

It is infuriating. I surrendered and backed mine up on iCloud and then reset my phone removing everything and then installing the backup. So far (about 24 hours) it has remained stable. I cleared up 16GB with the reset. My ‘other‘ category is now 3.8GB it had grown to 18GB. I haven’t reactivated some of my apps. Will probably bring them back one at a time and monitor things for a few days before adding another.

I recommend what I did last night: backup your iPhone (iCloud and iTunes if possible) then erase the iPhone and restore it. Took a few hours for my 64GB iPhone 8plus. So far I recovered the 10GB plus some extra space.

Which is why I posted how to fix it. Which I will repeat here:

Other is typically 1-2 GB. If it is larger, to fix this follow these steps:

• Back up your phone to your computer, iCloud or both (for belt-and-suspenders added security)—>How to back up your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch - Apple Support
• Restore the backup you have just made—>Restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch from a backup - Apple Support

Here is additional information on Other—>What is "Other" and What Can I Do… - Apple Community

13.6.1 is to specifically address abnormally large Other (and an unrelated green tinge problem on the screen of some phones). But Other is real data—>What is "Other" and What Can I Do About It? | Apple Support Communities. It’s only when there is storage corruption that Other becomes a problem. The current problem has nothing to do with 2 years ago. And reddit is not the final word on anything, and not a reliable source. For much longer than 2 years occasionally an iPhone would suddenly show a very large Other. In the past this was caused by an interrupted sync. During a sync content to be moved between iOS and iTunes was “staged” in storage (in Other), then in the final step of sync it was moved to the “sandbox” of the applications that owned the data. If the sync was interrupted before that final step the staged data would remain in Other.

The current problem has similar symptoms, but a totally different cause. It appears that it arose in 13.5.1 (or maybe 13.6), based on the fact that there was an order of magnitude increase in the reports of the problem in this forum and other sites. And it only happened to users who were already running out of available storage. A user would delete content, but not recover any storage. And Other would increase by the size of the content deleted. The reasonable assumption is that the space occupied by the deleted content was not being freed. This is the specific problem that 13.6.1 addresses.

If someone has a phone with plenty of storage they probably won’t even notice the size of Other, and they are also unlikely to delete large amounts of content, so even if Other grows larger as stuff is deleted they probably won’t notice unless they are actively looking for it. So that’s why the help article specifically refers to “when available storage is low”. I updated a family member’s iPhone 8 to 13.6.1 The phone was not short of storage, and did not have an especially large Other category, but Other went from 7.2 GB to 5.2 GB after the update. (My phone is not on a version affected by this problem).

The previous way of fixing it also works: Back up the phone, then restore the backup. But that doesn’t prevent it from recurring. I’m hoping that 13.6.1 fixes that also. Early reports are that it fixes the current problem by cleaning up Other. And several users who have access to the level 6 and above forum noted that it reduced their Other storage, but didn’t do it all at once. They could watch it go down over a period of several hours.

What I did last night that seems to have worked is I backed my iPhone to iCloud and iTunes, then erased it and then restored it from the iTunes backup. So far I have 14GB free. Immediately after updating to 13.5.1 I had 10GB free then that went away over the following days. Some cache files being deleted are likely the reason for a few GB but not 10GB. Hopefully it stays the same.

Most have been successful in saving their phones by first backing them up then resetting them. Erasing all content. Then using the backup to restart the phone. This worked for me. My other category now remains at 4GB it had grown to 18GB.

I don't know if you have aleady solved this, but I had the same problem. I fixed it by installing iOS 13.6.1. Initially, I was uable to install the new system due to insufficient memory. Requirements were that you have to have 1.1 GB available to install. I freed up additional memory by offloading all of my installed apps one or two at a time until I had enough memory available. When installation was completed, I reinstalled all of the offloaded apps..Now, all is well with 3 GB to spare. Hope this helps

Try offloading apps on your phone until you have at least 1.1 GB available. Then install iOS 13.6.1. You should not need iTunes to do the installation. I had the same problem and this worked for me. I now have 3.5 GB available. This is a memory management issue that is solved by 13.6.1

I just updated to ios13.6.1 - I was having the exact same issue. In order to update (couldn't even do it on my computer and it's a work phone so to do a reset and restart is a HUGE pain) I had to delete apps and every single picture I had on the phone.

When I looked at the purpose of the update it mentioned this problem. And I found this.... https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211686

My "other" immediately dropped by 10GB while I was watching the screen after I turned it back on. So....if you can manage to get enough stuff off, immediately try the update!!!

To free up storage, you will need to “offload”, not delete as many apps as necessary to get to 1.1 GB of free memory. To offload the apps, go to settings, general, iPhone storage. The apps will be listed in order of the highest memory use first. Start with the top one. Select it, and on the next screen, select “Offload”. Check your available memory. If there is not enough, offload the next one, then repeat until you have at least 1.1 GB. Then install 13.6.1. After it has successfully installed, go back and install each of the apps that you had offloaded. You will not have lost any personal information associated with the apps. If you delete the apps, you will lose all personal information associated with the app. Good luck!

Hi , Thanks for your comments , not sure what was the problem other was using 23 GB of phone storage and systems and data was using around 5 GB , I managed to fix this issue by doing a factory reset good that I had a backup on iCloud so now I am good with the phone storage. But all this happened only after 13.5.1 update.

A large “Other” can be an indication of storage corruption. The way to fix it is to back up your phone—>How to back up your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch - Apple Support

Then restore that backup—>Restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch from a backup - Apple Support

It's been a few days since I erased my iPhone, and then restored my stuff from iCloud. Looks like that solved the problem! I have about 40gb of free space right now, and "other" in storage is not getting larger like it was before erasing my phone. Thanks for the help everyone!

I ran into the same issue with an iPhone 7 (though it did not impact other who had newer versions of the iPhone). I backed up the phone but restore backup did not work, apparently because storage was minimal on the phone. So reset the phone (wiped the phone) and then tried backup again. It worked and got back 16GB of the 32 GB phone!! Let’s see if this lasts.

This entire exercise was time consuming because small things will cause delays. Like the backup could not be restored on one attempt because it was encrypted, and so on.

After deleting legit everything possible from my phone I backed it up to my MacBook (after also deleting a ton there to make room for my stupid phone) and restored and that finally cleared out the other and it hasn’t re-grown (yet). So annoying that that bug is there but glad everything is back to normal!