My iCloud on my iPhone is almost full. What is using so much space?

If you have a lot of photos and videos in your camera roll and are backing up your phone to iCloud, it could be the size of your backup. It could also be your email if you keep many emails with large attachments. It could also be keeping an old backup from another device. This guide will help you determine what's using your space and how to manage/reduce it.

You're welcome.

Hi,

I have the same problem but no apps are being backed up to iCloud (all turned off) and camera roll backup is also turned off and deleted. What else could possibly be taking up so much room on the iPhone? iPhone supposedly has 4.9g of backup items incl mail which only has 9.8 mb. There are no old backups of former devices. I have deleted the entire iCloud backup and rebooted numerous times but as soon as I turn backup back on, 4.9g is taken up and i get the "not enough storage" message. There is something on the iPhone that is taking up all the room and I just can't find it.

Help?

Thanks.

Connect your phone to your computer, open iTunes, click on the name of your device, then check the capacity bar at the bottom. How large is your "Other" category (hover your mouse over the Other segment to reveal the size).

Hi,

"Other" has 3.8 or so gb. What is in "other" and how can I get rid of it? ;-)

And what could be taking up the remaining 1+ gb of space?

Thanks!

Other includes data such as iPhone settings, contacts, calendar events, Safari bookmarks/cache/cookies, email and email attachments, SMS/MMS/iMessages, notes, app data, Safari cache, cookies and bookmarks, stored passwords, search index, home screen organization, wi-fi network data, etc. It should normally be about 1GB or so. Back up your device in iTunes (by going to the Summary tab of your iTunes sync settings and clicking on Back Up Now under Manually Back Up and Restore. After the backup completes, restore it by clicking on Restore iPhone on this same Summary tab. After it restores and restarts, when given the option, choose Restore to iTunes Backup. This will normally substantially reduce the size of Other.

Then check the size of your next iCloud backup again. (The remaining items could include things like cached music if you use iTunes Match or other apps that use a lot of data. The estimate may also just be off because there is something corrupt on your phone in Other, which should be corrected by restoring it.)

Thanks!

I have technically 4.8 gb on my iphone, 245 mb on my ipad and 6 mb on my ipad mini which adds up to the 4.9-ish. The contacts and emails are the same for all devices so it won't be that, so I was thinking maybe SMS/MMS messages but I deleted those when I first had the storage problem. I don't use itunes match. So I am really confused as to what it could be.

Sigh. Just trying to avoid the backup to itunes and restore part of the process for the iphone. But I guess sit's my last resort. Not meaning to be lazy, but after the first 6.0 update my phone got corrupted so I had to restore as new and it took forever to get everything in working order again (literally, since I use all devices for work, lol).

Thanks so much for your help. You've been extremely helpful. 🙂

If all three devices are sharing and backing up to the same iCloud account it could easily be the combined space of all 3 backups. You could check Settings>iCloud>Storage & Backup>Manage Storage on the Backups list to see.

Unfortunately, the only way to fix your large "Other" issue is to back it up and restore it. Even if you ultimately decided to just start backing up to your computer rather than iCloud due to storage constraints, the Other category is likely to keep growing if not addressed.

Yes, I did use manage storage and they are all combined and the iCloud storage is made up of: iPhone 4.8gb, ipad 245mb and the mini 6 mb. So I am just really wondering what on earth could possibly be on the iphone to add up to 4.8 esp when camera roll backup is turned off. 😕

So I will try the backup and restore thing soon. Just can't do it now beause it would put my phone out of commisson for a while. 😟

Thanks again for your help and expertise.

You're welcome.

Hi!

DId the backup and restore this evening. Still the same issue. In iTunes, the "other" items on the iphone increased to 5.8 gb but did not affect the iPhone iCloud usage.

Genius Bar didn't know what to do either.

I wonder if the phone itself is the problem? 😕

Again, thanks so much for your help.

If that did not reduce Other, then unfortunately the source of the problem is contained in your backup and the only way to solve it is to save as much of your data as you can, then restore as a new iPhone and start over. You can save your photo stream photos to the camera roll (by opening the my camera roll album, tap Edit, tap all the photos, tap Share, tap Save to Camera Roll), then import your photos and videos to your computer (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4083), write down all your email account settings, back up your contacts, calendar, reminders and notes by syncing them with iCloud. If you have any voice memos, you can email them to yourself. If you have voicemails, music not purchased from the iTunes store or photos in your photo library that are not on your computer or in your iTunes library you'll have to use 3rd party software to save these, such as Touch Copy (PC and Mac) or PhoneView (Mac only). Then transfer your purchases to your iTunes library (File>Devices>Transfer Purchases) and sync your phone. This will save most of your data, but you will lose your text message conversations.

The other option is not to back up to iCloud and instead back up to your computer using iTunes. You're problem with Other won't go away and will probably continue to get worse until you bite the bullet and deal with it.

Yikes. That's what I was afraid of. WIll do this after the busy season is over...I remember it took quite a while to do the restore as new when I had to do this after the first 6.0 update and then a really long time to get the phone back in working order.

Thanks again for you help and your time. Really appreciated. 🙂