Why has my iPhone got an absurd amount of Other storage?

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Level 1

11 points

Why has my iPhone got an absurd amount of Other storage?

I have been using this iPhone for a good 9-10 months, maintenancing very well on the cache side of things such as clearing Safari when I'm done, offloading and reloading apps when I don't need them, or even removing and reinstalling apps to refresh, so I don't rack up a lot of Other space. It's usually around 3-4GB, but as of recent, it's been racking 7.5GB for no reason at all. I have already restored the phone 6 times as last-resorts to minimise all Other space, but it eventually comes back. I have 6 apps, a handful of photos, 20 videos, and 369 songs from my iTunes library. All apps and the iOS itself is up to date. I just don't understand why my Other space is taking so much despite having no corrupt apps and almost no cache? It's really starting to bug me when about an eighth of my phone can't be used.

iPhone 11, iOS 14

Posted on Apr 7, 2021 1:30 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Halliday

Level 4

2,671 points

Apr 7, 2021 2:53 PM in response to dolchini

Welcome, dolchini, to Apple Support Communities!

Your “Other” storage category is quite reasonable. (My iPad Pro, 12.9 inch, 2nd gen., running iPadOS 14.4.2, has nearly 19 GB of “Other”. In fact, even as I watched, the storage categories rearranged, reducing the “Other” from something much larger, though the total used space didn’t change.)

Since the “Other” storage category is the “catch-all” for anything and everything that isn’t recognized as belonging to the other named storage categories, it can be subject to the vagaries of the system’s ability to recognize file storage categories.

It is not subject to user maintenance: it is purely under the control of the Operating System.

However, there are things you, the user, can do to help optimize the use of your local, device storage, by utilizing iCloud storage.

While this does not, instantly, free up device storage, it can help optimize your device storage by taking advantage of iCloud storage. (Admittedly, this will increase the use of your iCloud storage.)

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Answer 2

dolchini Author

Level 1

11 points

Apr 7, 2021 1:40 PM in response to sberman

Thank you. I'm trying to keep this iPhone well under 50% storage usage so that it remains optimised for as long as possible. I did see that I've got a bunch of Analytics Logs that either say "diskwrite" or "Jetsam Event" though, could this be why it's got 8GB instead? It really hasn't done this since about two months ago.

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Answer 3

Apr 7, 2021 2:56 PM in response to dolchini

See→What is "Other" and What Can I Do About I… - Apple Community

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Answer 4

sberman

Level 10

264,567 points

Apr 7, 2021 1:34 PM in response to dolchini

More than half your storage is free, which is excellent. I strongly suggest not worrying about this.

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Why has my iPhone got an absurd amount of Other storage?

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