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Excessive "Other" Usage after iOS 5 Upgrade

When I was on iOS4, I had about 6.5Gb free on my 16Gb 3GS phone.


After the iOS5 update, I only have 1.56Gb free.


Itunes has 5.2Gb of "other" being on here, but doesn't tell me WHAT it is exactly.


How do I get rid of this "other"? Reading around tells me that I have to restore, but I'm not sure what the deal with that is. I made no changes other than upgrade to iOS5.

Custom Built, Windows 7

Posted on Oct 12, 2011 3:15 PM

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62 replies

Oct 12, 2011 3:45 PM in response to Jeff Hawkins

I had 16GB of music that disappeared with the IOS5 upgrade. It became 16GB of "other", and the ipod function said no content. I just did a second sync, and the 16GB of "other" disappeared, and the 16GB of music is back under the music (ipod) logo. I should add that during the sync, my mac gave the message that the iphone was over-capacity....that didn't seem to effect anything, just that the message was there. When the sync finished, the message went away, and "other" dropped down to it's normal few hundred MBs, and the ipod functons had all of my tunes.....problem solved!

Oct 12, 2011 5:33 PM in response to bradfromcenterville

If this is the size of the OS I'd be surprised. I have a 32GB iPhone 4, and I went from having over 50% capacity free to less than 15% capacity? That doesn't make sense. How would someone with an 8 or 16 GB iPhone even be able to update? My 'other' usage pre-update was sitting at approximately 3GB, now it's sitting at 12.2GB. That seems like an insanely big OS file.

Oct 12, 2011 6:13 PM in response to Joe Siegler

Not sure if this will help, but it worked for me: If you're in iTunes, eject and physically disconnect your phone and shut iTunes down (CMD-Q).


Reconnect your phone (iTunes should restart), then uncheck the 'sync' options for photos, books, tv shows, movies, music and ringtones.


Sync your phone.


Recheck the sync options for photos, books, tv shows, movies, music and ringtones.


Resync your phone.


My 'other' usage went from 12.2 GB down to 4 GB. Hope this works for someone.

Oct 12, 2011 8:13 PM in response to Joe Siegler

I upgraded today. Then I got an error while the iPhone was syncing. It said that the sync could not complete but no error code. I noticed that it said I had 20.8gb of "other" space being used. I tried syncing over and over again with the same result. Called Apple and they suggested that it might be a server issue due to the high volume of people upgrading to iOS 5. However, eventually they told me to make a change in my MobileMe settings (erase my sync history) but I couldn't get into MobileMe and they didn't seem to have an ideas.


So I just went ahead and restored my iPhone from my backup. Now I am running iOS 5 and have not had any issues yet (crossing my fingers).

Oct 12, 2011 8:27 PM in response to Ariel Nava

Hi All

I had the same issues on my iPad 2 and iPhone 4 - both had an extreme amount of "other" space and no photos, musics or videos. Even called the Apple Support center and made them stay on the line while I followed through with their suggestion of doing a complete restore of the device and backing up from iTunes.

All is working sweet now (fingers crossed too!) - minor hiccup but very happy with the new upgrades!

Oct 12, 2011 8:48 PM in response to Joe Siegler

I updated my iPhone 4 to IOS 5 and ended up with 6+ GB of 'Other'. Following advice I found elsewhere, I unchecked all sync options, sync'd, then rechecked the things that I wanted. 'Other' usage went down to 2.2 GB.


NB:


If you uncheck the box to sync apps, iTunes clears all the apps that you have selected. You will need to go back through all your apps and figure out which ones you want to put on your phone. This is a major failure for iTunes. If I decide to not sync apps, it should not throw away the information about which apps I would sync if I did sync and on which panes they appear.


Apple needs to address this problem ASAP. It is not clear what the phone could have in the Other category when I don't sync anything. And there is 2.2 GB of Other when nothing is being sync'd with the phone (iCloud is turned off).

Oct 12, 2011 9:13 PM in response to danielg99

I have the same issue. Unfortunately I lost internet connection after iOS5 was downloaded but before the entire update was finished and I received an alert. After my connection was back I continue the update and it seemed all was going to be ok but now my phone won't sync because there's not enough memory. And I have over 6.5 gigs of Other and even if I uncheck things like Apps or Music it doesn't bring that Other category down so I can't sync. I'm guessing I might have to Restore since my update did get interrupted???


rc

Excessive "Other" Usage after iOS 5 Upgrade

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