AmandaBatt

Q: "Other" category in iPhone

This is about the storage on my 16GB iPhone 4S. iOS 5.1 if that makes a difference.

 

My phone is full, and I've been deleting pictures and apps to free it up. However, a big chunk of space is lost to the "Other" category. 2 gigs to be exact. I have tried deleting the cache/cookies/history on Safari, it removed 0.07 gb.

 

So I have two questions,

 

First of all, what is this 2 gigs of space for "other" being used for?

I have no tabs open on safari, and as I said, I cleared all temporary files. I also do not have a significant amount of calendar entires, 10 at the max. I have heard that it is the iOS, but my 16 gig iPhone shows up as 13.8 gig on iTunes, so I would assume that the missing 2.2 gig would be lost to the iOS, no?

 

And second, how can I recover this space?

I have heard restoring, but what kind of restore in specific? Can it be from backup, or must it be fully reset to new? I do not want to lose my text messages, so I'd rather not set up as new. Or is there another option?

 

Thanks in advance

iPhone 4S, iOS 5.0.1

Posted on Apr 11, 2012 4:06 PM

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Q: "Other" category in iPhone

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  • by miwa_jun,

    miwa_jun miwa_jun Sep 28, 2012 1:35 AM in response to AmandaBatt
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    Sep 28, 2012 1:35 AM in response to AmandaBatt

    I had the same problem, i had 2 gigs of other that I couldn't account for, I eventually got rid of it by erasing all data and settings and then restoring from a back up ( i recommend having a at&t sim card) and when I had my iphone restored there was no other, but I had all my stuff on my phone still =) I hope this works for you!!

  • by conkerz,

    conkerz conkerz Sep 28, 2012 3:54 PM in response to AmandaBatt
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    Sep 28, 2012 3:54 PM in response to AmandaBatt

    Hi there, I've been having exactly the same problem, but with my iPod Touch 4G. Two days ago, my other was 0.5GB, and then yesterday it suddenly went up to 4.5GB. I hadn't added any apps or music, so decided to experiment by deleting some apps. Well, each app I deleted increased the 'other' category!! Then I did a sync, and 'other' increased by another 1GB.

     

    So after a lot of Googling, I decided to restore my iPod. That didn't help as my 'other' only went down to 3.5GB. So then I erased all contents and settings and restored from back up - 'other' was still 3.5GB. More Googling and I saw someone had said something about stored iMessages causing a problem with 'other' - so I deleted every single message, then erased all content again, restored from back up, and my 'other' went down to 0.67GB where it's stayed for the past 24 hours.

     

    Don't know if that will help you at all, but I had loads of video clips in my iMessages, and stuff going back months. Getting rid of everything in there, and then restoring my iPod cleared out my 'other' when nothing else would! I spoke to Apple today and was told the restore wouldn't work and that I should set it up as a new iPod - but I didn't want to do that because it takes so long to put everything back. Restoring it after erasing and clearing all iMessages did the trick for me.

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