ios 13.5.1 storage issues

While not introducing themselves is rude, I struggle to understand why that means people should refrain from contacting support?

On top of that, of course they may suggest things that you’ve already tried. They’re not telepathic, and it’s common in the tech support world to run through a list of common troubleshooting steps to ensure that all bases have been covered. I deal with this all the time when I have to contact tech support for my Internet at home. I have to tell the technician “yes, I’ve turned it off and on” every single time. It doesn’t mean that they are any less competent because they’re asking you to repeat steps you may have already tried. You would be surprised how many times people will think they have tried a troubleshooting step, only to realize they’ve misunderstood or completed the step incorrectly.

As for 7GB of ‘Other’ storage - that’s actually a perfectly normal number. ‘Other’ storage can take up anywhere from 5-10GB (maybe a bit more) worth of space at any given time, as it is comprised a number of different things, including system files and temporary files. It’s not unusual for that number to go up after updating to a new operating system.

I agree that there IS an issue with the new update, such as in OP’s post where ‘Other’ is taking up 23GB of space (that’s unusual and a lot!). However in your case, that may be perfectly normal. Please keep in mind that new operating systems are designed with newer devices in mind, and those newer devices start with a minimum of 64GB.

I’m sorry you’re dealing with this, but again in your case it’s entirely possible it’s completely normal. Please don’t discourage others from contacting Apple Support because of a less than stellar experience with a single employee. I’ve also gotten a survey almost every single time I’ve either bought something from Apple or contacted their support. If you get it, you can fill it out to let them know about your experience.

I just got off the phone with a super nice technical help person. Who was unable to offer any assistance. I was impressed by his attempts to search their system for any relevant information. However he was not able to produce anything to help resolve my ongoing issues.

This situation presents itself as some sort of virus or best case some corrupt data source that grows uncontrollably in the 'other' category.

It appears I'm going to have to wipe the phone clear and start fresh. This concerns me not only because it's will be a pain but how do I know I won't reintroduce what is causing this problem right back into the phone? What I've learned is that the inability to drill down into the 'other' category files to at least identify what is growing unchecked is a big weakness of this operating system. If I could see what files are growing I could likely eliminate the problem but that does not appear to be an option. I guess my next research will be if Android phones have a better approach because this is not acceptable if an alternative exists.

I have the exact same issue. This is ridiculous. No matter how many videos/photos I delete 2 hours later my phone is out of storage again. I've deleted more than 3GB since the message 1st came on a few days ago, downloaded nothing, recorded nothing and am again out of memory.

What is this scam???

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.

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.

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.

Same issue here.. I kept on deleting photos/videos and messages to clear up storage on my 64gb iPhone X. But "other" keeps growing to the point where it's now occupying 25gb.

I'm unable to backup to my MBP (110GB available) and iCloud (200GB). Not sure what's going on. It keeps saying not enough space on my MBP, and "the last backup could not complete" when I try Backup Now for iCloud.

For backup issues, if you haven’t already tried, shut down and power back up your iPhone. Also power cycle macs you’re trying to back up to. Backing up is a more significant problem. I would try to fix that first.

Tried both, and still have the same issue. My available space on my iPhone fluctuates from 19mb to 300mb. Don't know if that hasn't anything to do with it. Makes no sense to me why both my MBP and iCloud tell me there's not enough space.

That is most likely your problem. Your phone needs at least 1 GB free at all times. Try restarting the phone to see if that frees some space. If not you will have to either offload or defeat enough apps or music to free up 1 GB.

It’ll probably go just fine, but it’s just a temporary fix regardless.

The perceived need for offloading of stuff may also be Apple’s plan, for us to buy more storage and/or phones.

The problem needs to be fixed instead of us working around it only to be defeated by the “Other” storage again and again.

Question is, What is “Other” that all the sudden eats lots of space?

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!

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 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.

I wiped my iPhone 6S clean by resetting it and by doing that I got a lot of memory back. Thereafter I reinstalled my apps back. However, 2 weeks later and my phone has the same problem because it has the same updated IOS 13.5.1 version on it. Can’t use any apps anymore. Useless piece of metal. ***** big time. Great job making me want to switch to Samsung Galaxy. Great job Apple.