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Hello. I have a 128GB iPhone 11, which had a lot of storage space (approximately 70-80GB available). However, today my storage has become full because “System Data” is occupying 102GB. What’s the reason behind this and how will this be fixed? I have iCloud also.
iPhone 11, iOS 15
It's kind of odd what that is. Various stuff may show up as "System Data", "Other", or "Used Files" depending on where you're looking at it, such as in Finder or iTunes.
A lot of may be discarded files that haven't been cleaned up yet, like cache and other stuff. Not sure why. The only way I know of to clean that up is to back up to a computer, then reset to factory settings, and finally restore from the backup. It's kind of tedious and it would make sense to double check that one knows any backup encryption password (otherwise it might not be possible to restore from the backup). The backup won't contain any of those files, so restoring from a backup typically gives the user a clean slate on all that junk that builds up.
Back up iPhone - Apple Support
Restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch from a backup - Apple Support
It's kind of a drastic measure, but sometimes the only thing that works.
It's kind of odd what that is. Various stuff may show up as "System Data", "Other", or "Used Files" depending on where you're looking at it, such as in Finder or iTunes.
A lot of may be discarded files that haven't been cleaned up yet, like cache and other stuff. Not sure why. The only way I know of to clean that up is to back up to a computer, then reset to factory settings, and finally restore from the backup. It's kind of tedious and it would make sense to double check that one knows any backup encryption password (otherwise it might not be possible to restore from the backup). The backup won't contain any of those files, so restoring from a backup typically gives the user a clean slate on all that junk that builds up.
Back up iPhone - Apple Support
Restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch from a backup - Apple Support
It's kind of a drastic measure, but sometimes the only thing that works.
Thanks a lot for your responses. Seems like that might be the only way to fix this, so will give that a shot. Would you happen to know if it’s got anything to do with iCloud?
It does not. In the past you used to see this with pirated music files, more recently it usually involves photos and videos. If you have all of your photos also on your computer you can use Finder (with a Mac) or File Explorer on a PC and look for a file with a suspicious file size, sometimes they can be set of zero byte files or on that is multiple GBs large. If you can remove them and have the changes sync it might solve your problem. Another diagnostics step you can take is to archive your last backup then restore your iPhone as a new device. If the large amount of system space is gone it is definitely a corrupt file or files.
Hey thank you, but don’t that will help much because I usually have enough space, and the storage isn’t being used by apps. As you can see in the photo, it’s being heavily used by system data.
Usually when this is seen it is due to a corrupted file or files. Try the blue links in y_p_w's post.
System Data using 100GB of phone storage
