How do I delete "documents & data" that is consuming space?

This issue is constantly a struggle for me. I have turned off "Documents and Data" under Settings > General > iCloud and then deleted all ongoing Message conversations. I synced the phone, and I still show 5.8 GB of Messages under Settings >General > Usage. I cannot figure out any other way to get rid of these messages and free up this space. The phone is so full that I can't take a single picture. There is not space to store one more picture. PLEASE help. Any advice would be great.

1. Back up with iTunes
2. Settings>General>Reset>Erase All Content and Settings
3. Retore iPhone with iTunes

😎

Despite months and now years of requests, Apple has failed to restore the ability to limit the number of emails in iOS 7 & 8. (The fact that this pressures people to buy higher-memory, more expensive iPhones is no doubt an unfortunate coincidence.) So "documents and data" on my iPhone 5s (iOS 8.3) was quickly eating up the free space on the phone. The above suggestion worked, although I had to remember to "delete all" in the trash after deleting unwanted email messages. Moving messages to Junk Mail did not have the desired effect. Some were re-downloaded, so the phone does not appear able to learn to recognize junk. And I had to "delete all" in that mailbox too to recover space taken up by "documents and data." (I also limited the number of messages in my inbox on the server, to limit downloads, but that is a different story.)

I tried all of these solutions and gained nothing. So... I went into setting, deleted all of my email accounts (they were a pain anyway since I still had to go into the real account to delete my mail anyway) and I gained 2GB of usage data!!! I'm tired of deleting emails twice anyway. The convenience was nice but not enough to lose 2 GB!! Good luck everyone!

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I have about 15GB of Documents & Data, but now that I think about it I'm pretty sure it's all in my Evernotes & Google docs. I have hundreds of documents there with tons of images attached in them. I'm still irritated apple doesn't provide a better breakdown of all storage on macs and iphones. I have this problem on my mac as well, 500 GB full yet i have no idea where all this space is. I've narrowed down about 250GB but the rest is unknown, and no giant files found, i deleted all big files such as videos. Seriously apple how hard is it to build this feature?

Bump. I wish Apple would get rid of this with some sort of way to delete the cache, esp. as to e-mail and iMessages. Let me store some of this on that sweet iCloud data I just purchased, at least.

After I upgraded to iOS 9.3, I was frequently having storage space issue and the Documents & Data consumed 5.78GB. I tried deleting all my email accounts and all Document management apps like Box, SkyDrive, Google Docs etc., but the space usage didn't come down. I deleted most of the media in whatsapp and the space usage under Settings -> General -> Storage & iCloud Usage showed 603 MB towards Whatsapp. I was so frustrated.

I tried to get support from Apple and had a chat session. Interestingly they asked if I had whatsapp and suggested to update to the latest version (2.12.15+). I installed it but right away didn't see the usage coming down. Support suggested to wait for 24 hours and I was not happy. But within 10 minutes, I could see the Documents & Data went down to 1.4 GB and now I got back over 4GB of space.

I don't know if this helps anyone but... I had just over 6 gb of "Documents & Data." I realized after a bit that it was my Audible data and books. Audible didn't save under "Audio" it saved under documents and data.

I went thru this thread and did everything it said to do......I wiped my phone and it did not get rid of the HUGE documents and data amount. I dumped the pages documents. None of that worked., AFTER backing up to my mac, I manually deleted ALL of my messages. That immediately dropped documents and data to a tiny little amount and now my phone is FREE at last!!

ONE more thing about STORAGE. I kept on getting messages on my phone saying I had used up almost all of my storage. If you check in your data plan under the place where you can downgrade your plan it will show you how much data you are currently using. I was purchasing 1.0 TB of data storage for $9.99 a month for a couple of years without knowing this. My current usage was only 2 GB. DANG, the free plan provides for 5 GB !! That is $120/year savings. I suggest you go check it out. settings>icloud>storage>change storage plan> enter your apple id> now look above the new plan choices and there it will be written kinda small...just how much storage you are using. You are welcome.

Thank you! After reading all the responses as to why I have 1.5 gm on documents and data, this FINALLY answered the dilemma!!🙂

How do I delete "documents & data" that is consuming space?

Restore your iPhone and reinstall from backup. I cleared up 8gigs that was "documents and Data"

Thank you so much for all your help!! 🙂

I also had this issue on my personal phone and removed the text messages and deleted the search history in safari and removed most of the documents and data.

I fixed it on mine.

I had 8 GB used in Documents and Data under Podcasts.

I went to iTunesU, and downloaded enough to fill the iPod. As it filled, the amount used in Documents and Data went down.

I then deleted the iTunesU stuff and it is at 45 MB and I have 17GB free on my 32GB Touch.