How to clear system data on iPhone

No matter how many times I follow the recommendations and offload and delete apps- my iPhone 12 storage always fills up- I can’t figure out why. I have about 25gb in apps, 11 GB of photos, 9 iOS, 16 in system data! Anyway to reduce that system data? Capacity is 64GB- seems crazy that a third of that is stuff I can’t control.


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iPhone 12

Posted on May 19, 2023 8:02 PM

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Posted on Dec 23, 2023 6:34 AM

The main cause for system storage taking up all your space is like I said in my other post here which is app cache. The only solution I’ve found to this is to delete and reinstall apps. Apps such as Spotify,YouTube, and discord were the main culprits on my phone (Spotify having 3gbs worth YouTube 5gbs and discord having 7 gbs worth). This could also be happening with other messaging or video based apps.

57 replies

Dec 23, 2023 6:31 AM in response to laceefromseattle

Hi Lacee!

i just ran into the exact same problem myself and from what I can tell the main problem is due to app cache. As far as I am aware the only way to get rid of app cache on iPhones are to delete the app or some apps(not all only like 3 of mine had this) have a built in delete cache button in the app. It won’t completely remove all system data but it should take a large chunk. Just delete apps and reinstall them. Because app cache is included in the “System Data” category. After doing this my system data went from 25ish gbs to 17 gbs.

however I’m gonna be honest with you I think the main issue is definitely your photo storage. Check through your settings because their should be an option like low quality saving or something along the lines of that. Dw it won’t make them like 240p they still look almost identical to the originals but take up a fraction of the storage. I have over like 10k photos but only 1 gbs worth of storage. There’s also an option somewhere where is stores your photos in the iCloud and they still appear in your phone but after a while they get deleted…it’s kinda weird but like their still there just next time you wanna use them your phone would download them from iCloud. Idk if this’ll work for you since well what’s done is done and idk if you can revert your photos. I hope this helped.

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How to clear system data on iPhone

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