Level 1

44 points

iPhone storage keeps going back to full after deleting many things daily

I have an iPhone XS 64 GB running on the latest firmware (iOS 13.5.1). I also have 200GB of iCloud storage that I use across all my apple devices. I still have over 100GB of free storage left on my iCloud. For the past couple of weeks, my iPhone has repeatingly been telling me that my iPhone storage is full. All my photos are saved in the cloud. I have deleted many and emptied out the recently deleted in my phone. It gave me the option to offload unused apps to iCloud, which freed up 7GB, but then a couple days later it claimed my storage is full again. I also deleted some apps too in hope it would free space. In addition, I cleared my safari history and website data which freed 5 GB, but then the next day my phone storage went back to full. I have deleted conversations and big files, yet theres no help in that. I look at whats using the most memory on my phone storage through the settings app and tried to delete some stuff. I have also deleted some apps and reinstalled them to clear some of those apps memory. I searched many thing online on how to free up memory. It says my system memory is 6.77GB and "Other" is 31.21GB. I noticed that the "Other" section keeps increasing. When I deleted the Safari History and Website data, the "Other" section went down to 27GB then the next day it refilled to 32GB. At this point, I am convinced the phone is trying to fill up my memory with something every time I delete anything. Nothing is working and it is getting frustrating. Can someone help me out with this?

iPhone XS, iOS 13

Posted on Jul 1, 2020 10:11 AM

Top-ranking reply

ananda129

Level 1

4 points

Posted on Feb 6, 2021 10:49 AM

I had the same issue, I have been able to solve it. Doing an iphone reset is not strong enough to clear the “others” sometimes.(for whatever reason that is I don’t know)

So this is what I did I backed up and restored my iPhone on iTunes and that was able to wipe the “others” from my storage.

Just run your iPhone on iTunes on your MacBook or windows device
Click on your iPhone
click restore iPhone
There will be an option telling you to back up before restore, if you have done that already just go to restore without back up
When you click on restore iPhone, iTunes will download the software needed to restore your iPhone; this will take a while, it took me like 4 to 5hours probably because of network issues. It may be less depending on how fast your internet is.
When it starts downloading don’t pause or move the phone till it’s finished
When it’s done the software will wipe your phone and restore it to factory reset and that will wipe the “other” storage problem

View in context

Similar questions

115 replies

Dec 17, 2020 6:31 AM in response to Lawrence Finch

Thank you Lawrence. I did that 3 times and other storage came out bloated each time. After the 3rd factory reset, I was to return the phone next day. When I woke up in the morning, the "other" storage was shrunk down in size. And today my "other" storage is at 11GB instead of 57GB, which is still too much IMO, but now at least I can use the phone.

So, the "fix" for me was to wait a day or more and the other storage shrunk down.

Feb 9, 2021 8:05 AM in response to gabzhd

Does your sister-in-law have Optimize Photos enabled on the phone? That saves lower resolution versions of the photos.

Deleted photos don’t go away immediately; they move to the Recently Deleted album. If you delete them from there that should free up space, but sometimes they get moved to Other as a catch-all for storage corruption. If that is the problem you need to back up the phone, restore it to factory settings, then restore the backup. This removes storage corruption.

gabzhd

Level 1

4 points

Feb 9, 2021 8:41 AM in response to Lawrence Finch

No, she doesn’t- but, I do! Which is extra frustrating.. 😂 Also, yes, I am completely aware of the ‘Recently Deleted’ album - and I always make sure to permanently delete them from my phone.

Yes, I think it be a storage corruption. That’s why I think running the photos through a third party application helped the phone to recognise some of the media for what it was.

I will be backing it up again and restoring it to factory setting for certain. The last time that I backed up my photos up, earlier this week, my iMac and iCloud counted around 50GB of photos.. I’m not sure, we’ll see soon! Thank you for your reply!

Feb 19, 2021 6:41 AM in response to Furtwixt

Furtwixt wrote:

If the icloud synching were functioning the way it was intended (storing dafa off-device and making it available when you reach for it) then how does this keep happening?

That is not how iCloud syncing was ever intended to work. iCloud, from its inception, has always been a syncing service that keeps data synced across multiple devices. It was never intended for storing data off-device; as has been clearly described in Apple KnowledgeBase articles. There are many services that do what you think iCloud was supposed to do: Dropbox, box.com, Livedrive, Microsoft OneDrive, Google Drive, Amazon S3. If that is what you want to do use one of these. iCloud is not just another “me too” archive service; it has a different purpose that is not offered by any of the other cloud providers.

Sep 11, 2020 7:05 AM in response to Natalie717

If updating to 13.7 didn’t fix it you have a different problem with Other. You need to back up your phone, then restore the backup.

Sep 25, 2020 7:51 PM in response to Divinegahdess

Start by updating to the latest available iOS version. There was a problem with iOS 13.5 that could cause deleted content to be moved to Other. Fixed in 13.7 and later (now 14.0.1).

Oct 10, 2020 4:27 PM in response to paisley290

Start by updating to the latest available iOS version. There was a problem with iOS 13.5 that could cause deleted content to be moved to Other. Fixed in 13.7 and later (now 14.0.1).

Nov 17, 2020 4:48 PM in response to mehde112

I have the same problem and my “other” storage is at 57.19GB

Nov 17, 2020 5:08 PM in response to JayDhillon

JayDhillon wrote:

I have the same problem and my “other” storage is at 57.19GB

Clear Other storage on your iPhone or iPad - Apple Support

Feb 15, 2021 12:42 PM in response to Caciora

O.k !! Thanks

but my WhatsApp wants me to turn on the iCloud Drive for backup..

I think from now on I start to backup my iPhone only via iTunes. Unfortunately

apple need to solve this already !!!

This thread has been closed by the system or the community team. You may vote for any posts you find helpful, or search the Community for additional answers.

iPhone storage keeps going back to full after deleting many things daily