Giant "other" usage on iPhone. How do I recover this space?

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Level 1

44 points

Giant "other" usage on iPhone. How do I recover this space?

I am running iOS 5.1.1 on my 16GB iPhone4. iTunes reports 3.4 GB of space used as "other". I have deleted all of my text messages, a bunch of PDFs, and many apps but this has not made a dent. My few apps that DO store data do not have enough files to come close to this amount.

Researching this problem has led to to believe that I need to backup, reset, and restore the device. However, I am not ready to migrate to iOS6 yet. Is there any way to either recover the lost stoarge space OR restore my phone and still keep my current operating system?

This may or may not be pertinant, but I sync my phone on a WinXP box.

Please be gentle. This phone is NOT jailbroken, I just prefer iOS 5.1.1 for now.

Thank you for any guidance you can offer.

iPhone 4, iOS 5.1.1

Posted on Oct 25, 2012 8:50 AM

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Answer 1

razmee209

Level 10

191,292 points

Oct 25, 2012 11:14 AM in response to Chionanthus

Use the search function at the top right type in others or look at the right at more like this.

Look for the threads with a green check mark to find your answer.

Note you can't get rid of others it is usually at 1.0 GB anything above that is a corrupt file.

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Answer 2

Chionanthus Author

Level 1

44 points

Oct 26, 2012 9:06 AM in response to razmee209

Thanks, razmee209. I searched the forums pretty extensively before posting my question. However, I did not find an answer, hence my post.

Are you saying that _your_ "Other" is 1 GB? That is a lot larger than what I found in the many postings I have seen on this topic.

As stated above, I know that I need to reset and restore my iPhone. My real question is how to do this and retain 5.1.1. If there is a solution that you are aware of that I missed, I would greatly appreciate a link to that.

Thanks for your help.

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Answer 3

razmee209

Level 10

191,292 points

Oct 26, 2012 9:18 AM in response to Chionanthus

Yes, other should be default at 1 GB anything over 1 g is a corrupt file, no mines at 5 GB, I would need to restore my phone as new and not from backup if I want to get rid of it.

What you can try is do a backup of your phone http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1766 then got to settings general reset erase all contents and settings. after that is done then go thru the setup and restore from backup. Then see if the other has decreased. IF not then you will have to restore as new and not from backup.

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Answer 4

Chionanthus Author

Level 1

44 points

Oct 29, 2012 8:29 AM in response to razmee209

I was able to successfully restore from backup while retaining my current (outdated) iOS. The key was to reset the iPhone from Settings > Reset > Erase All Content and Settings from the iPhone, NOT iTunes. ITunes still wants to update my iOS but I was able to decline that option and restore my phone just as it was - minus the 3.4 GB of corrupt data. My "other" is now a sleek .57 GB.

I am pretty sure that my overly large Other reading was probably a bad copy of my music - I sync my phone on two PC's - one for music (home) and the other (work) for everything else. I probably goobered it up when I was trying to set this all up in the first place. Now to go to my other PC and put my music back on.

I am posting this in case it helps someone else that has the same question. Just be sure that you have a good backup of your phone before erasing it.

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