TwisterDC

Q: Why is my "other" space on my iPhone 5 / iOS 7 so large and always growing?

I have seen this question posted a lot but I don't believe I've ever seen Apple post a definitive response.  If there is one official definitive response on how to keep this from happening and I missed it sorry. 

 

I have the same problem it seems many are having.  I have an iPhone 5 with 16 GB running iOS 7.0.4.  As soon as I upgraded to iOS 7, I started seeing a lot of my space being taken up by "other".  It was up to about 4-5 GB as I recall, which is ridiculous especially for a phone advertised with 16 GB. 

 

The only remedy I could find that did anything was to restore my phone from scratch, which is a pain in the -ss, but I did it anyway.  Initially that seemed to work and I was in the hundreds of MB of "other" for a while. 

 

Today, about 2 weeks later, I went sync and to my amazement it was up again to 2 GB of "other".  I synced it and then it grew to 2.52 GB.  ***? 

 

I am on iTunes 11.1.3 on Mac if that makes any difference.

 

Is there a definitive fix or something different I can do for this recurrning problem?  Obviously I cannot keep restoring my iPhone once ever week or two to recapture disk space.  I hardly use my phone for the apps (use my iPad for most of that) so it's not like I am doing a bunch of complicated apps with large data sets.

 

Update: I synced it again and now it went up to 2.53 GB. 

 

Is there a fix for this?  It is getting old having to delete all my music to make room for all this.

iPhone 5, iOS 7.0.4, Recurring problem for iOS 7.0.x

Posted on Nov 25, 2013 10:46 AM

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Q: Why is my "other" space on my iPhone 5 / iOS 7 so large and always growing?

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  • by alabuda,

    alabuda alabuda Sep 24, 2014 5:58 AM in response to gilboy
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 24, 2014 5:58 AM in response to gilboy

    I found that going into Settings > General > Usage > Manage Storage > Safari > and clearing my "Offline Reading List" solved my issue. My 16GB iPhone 5 had 6GB of "Other" and only 20MB of free space left and after clearing my offline reading list, it is back up to 6GB free space.

  • by konstpoponst,

    konstpoponst konstpoponst Oct 6, 2014 4:09 PM in response to TwisterDC
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 6, 2014 4:09 PM in response to TwisterDC

    so I just had those problem too after updating to iOS 8. Experienced and solved the problem already once after some iOS 7 update. I guess they haven't fixed it since and probably won't soon. That's a shame for a company like Apple wants to be.

    What I did was a mix between all those things that were mentioned here.

    1) Backup (because you should always do it just in case)

    2) download a file management application like iFunbox

    3) go through the different folders in the raw file system and search for strange data. for example I found a (corrupted?) video file of 1.7GB in some folder

    4) delete everything inside the music folder.

    5) in iTunes uncheck the sync for music and apply changes + sync

    6) I made a complete fresh restore (was necessary in my case)

    7) restore from backup

    My "other" went down from 4.7 GB to 0.6GB

    Good luck everyone with solving this ******** issue!

  • by Scottyboy99,

    Scottyboy99 Scottyboy99 Oct 13, 2014 9:04 AM in response to konstpoponst
    Level 1 (85 points)
    Apple Watch
    Oct 13, 2014 9:04 AM in response to konstpoponst

    The 'other' space has been a constant problem. Across numerous devices (during iOS6, iOS7 and to a seemingly greater extent iOS8) it builds up for no reason. I don't even have to sync a device to see it steadily build. On my iPad it's at about 4 gigs, on my iPhone 4 it was upto nearly 3 and now my 5s it's around 2.5 gigs and building everyday. It can go up anywhere between 20 – 100 mb a day and that is with no new downloads/apps/minimal texting with no attachments/pics. I do use match but I disable downloads/usage under cellular and yet it still grows. In any event I never used match until recently and it grew even then. So the ‘other’ thing is an issue with iOS. Apple should provide easier tools to identify what is in there and the ability to free up space on the device itself. I suspect the vast majority of iDevice users have lots of ‘other’ space eating things up without knowing (or perhaps caring). I do understand vital
    system data may fall in this category but it’s a bit frustrating when you go into your usage list on the iPhone or iPad add everything up and it does not
    reconcile with what you have used and falls short but several gigabytes. I have used iExplore to delete files under cloud assets folder but very often this
    frees up very little (this is another frustration that often videos do not ‘stream’ but download and take space and do not necessarily delete themselves). I think the main thing is Apple need to provide a more detailed way of presenting what is in 'other'. If it is some kind of caching going on I'd like the ability to delete or clear it out. And to be able to do this on the device itself without having to resort to something like iExplorer. iExplorer is good but you just cannot go deleting away on it.

     

    Unfortunately the best way to combat ‘other’ is to restore which is a PITA but it always builds up over time.

  • by Scottyboy99,

    Scottyboy99 Scottyboy99 Oct 14, 2014 3:12 AM in response to Scottyboy99
    Level 1 (85 points)
    Apple Watch
    Oct 14, 2014 3:12 AM in response to Scottyboy99

    So my available space decreased over last day by another 30 megabytes. This is in spite of the values in the 'manage usage' section not changing at all. If I total all these up in a spreadsheet it only adds up to 15 gigs whilst the phone says I have 'used' 17.6 gigs. So it does not reconcile by 2.6 gigs. The reconciliation has steadily increased day by day despite no syncs to the computer, no new downloads and very minimal email and text usage. So where does the space dissappear to? This drives me mad. It happened on my old iPhone 4 and it happens on my current iPad 3rd gen and iPhone 5s. It was the same when both ran iOS7 and continues into iOS8 (if anything the loss of space is more rapid).

     

    The only thing I have really used my phone for in the last day is the YouTube app to stream a few videos. Although I don't think this is the cause. After all a quick check on the YouTube app in the usage section shows it has not swelled in size by anything notable (give or take a megabyte). So frustrating. There is obviously some kind of bug or annoying caching going somewhere.

  • by Alfred DeRose,

    Alfred DeRose Alfred DeRose Oct 14, 2014 5:19 AM in response to Scottyboy99
    Level 5 (7,169 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 14, 2014 5:19 AM in response to Scottyboy99

    2.6 GB is about what iOS uses.

  • by Scottyboy99,

    Scottyboy99 Scottyboy99 Oct 14, 2014 8:58 AM in response to Alfred DeRose
    Level 1 (85 points)
    Apple Watch
    Oct 14, 2014 8:58 AM in response to Alfred DeRose

    Thanks but isn't that already deducted from the available space? For example my phone is 32 gig model. So with formatting the available would be around 30 ish. My phone lists available as 28.6 (17.6 used, 9.2 free) in usage. So doesn't what iOS uses sit in that gap between 30 and 28.6? If that makes sense.

     

    But I might be wrong on that and 28.6 is what is available after formatting and iOS uses a fair chunk after that which is then reported as other. But it is still baffling to see 'other' increase anywhere between 10-50 megabytes a day. I don't see the apps/music/photos space swelling under usage yet the free space decreases. Every few days it will drop by say a 100 megabytes with no new apps, photos, music or pc syncing and really minimal usage and this is where the mystery is. Where is the space going to? It's ever so slowly dissappearing and although it'll be a while in a few months a couple more gigs will be lost at this rate. It happened on my iPhone 4 running iOS6 and then 7. It happens on my iPad running iOS6, 7 and now 8. And it also happens on my iPhone 5s which ran iOS7 and now iOS8. I'd love to know what iOS is doing all the time to lose the space. Clearly some kind of invisible caching but what it is baffles me considering the absolutely minimal usage of the devices. I have erased and started again before on devices but the 'other' always creeps up. If it stays between 1.5 - 2.5 I guess that is kind of acceptable but it doesn't. My iPad is at around 3 - 4 gigs of other. the iPhone at around 2.5, I haven't synced them in a long time and even then it never stalled so as to orphan data. They just fill up slowly on their own. Seems like a real issue with iOS

  • by ron2you,

    ron2you ron2you Oct 14, 2014 3:35 PM in response to TwisterDC
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 14, 2014 3:35 PM in response to TwisterDC

    SOLVED - I think I saw others using iTools to do this, I used iFunbox.. same technique..  delete all the orphaned media files in the directory iTunes_Control\Music..  just deleted all the folders and contents with iTunes closed, iphone connected via usb and running ifunbox.. after deleting, reboot iphone, opened itunes, did new sync and "other" goes away..  re-toggled music sync again and now loading music and photos back to iphone (had removed the sync in troubleshooting at some point)..

     

    note: restore, reboot, deleting email accounts, calendars, etc. etc. .. did absolutely NOTHING..   i think the theory that these are orphaned from bad syncs seems to make sense..

     

    PS: running iTunes 11.4 (18) with 32g iPhone 5S on iOS 8.0.2

  • by Darth,

    Darth Darth Oct 15, 2014 12:08 PM in response to TwisterDC
    Level 3 (630 points)
    Oct 15, 2014 12:08 PM in response to TwisterDC

    This seems to be a sync related problem for me. I have a 64 GB 5th gen iPod touch with iOS 8.0.2 on it and have not had any problems with 'other' until yesterday. Sync music via a smart playlist directly via cable (i.e., not WiFi, though wifi sync is enabled). Day before yesterday syncing was stuck on 'Waiting for items to copy' for much longer than usual and I cancelled the sync on several occasions. I typically have about 15 gigs of music and 15-20 gigs of free space on the device. I couldn't get a sync to finish and 'other' expanded to 16 GB. I did a wireless sync, which took all night (about 12 hours) to complete, though the 16 gigs of 'other' remains. I'll try the delete all music, backup, etc, routine and see where it gets me. Further evidence that one cause of this problem is sync related.

  • by mjham00,

    mjham00 mjham00 Oct 19, 2014 10:37 AM in response to TwisterDC
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 19, 2014 10:37 AM in response to TwisterDC

    PhoneClean did it for me guys! Before using it, I only had 1.3GB of space open, and about 3.8GB of "other" space. Now I have 5.59GB of open space. I first did the deep clean within PhoneClean, and that practically did nothing, opening up maybe about 150MB of space. Then I went into the tool box, and used all of the system tools in there and it cleaned it all up very well!

  • by johnsmith1882,

    johnsmith1882 johnsmith1882 Oct 21, 2014 5:23 AM in response to TwisterDC
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 21, 2014 5:23 AM in response to TwisterDC

    I just purchased a new iPhone 6 128GB over the weekend. After many (>10) aborted attempts at transferring my music files of 12,000 tracks and photos of around 5,000 images via iTunes 12, "other" space was up to 50GB.

     

    I tried to use PhoneClean to fix but in the end it was better to rebuild my iTunes library from scratch using the iTunes Music Library.xml file and restore the iPhone and re-sync.

     

    Now "other" is down to 2.11GB.

  • by NYCARR,

    NYCARR NYCARR Oct 26, 2014 11:44 PM in response to TwisterDC
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 26, 2014 11:44 PM in response to TwisterDC

    My iPhone said that "other" was taking up 7 gigs on my iPhone 5 32 gig. I deleted all my emails, all my text messages and still close to 7 gigs of space taken up by "other". Then I decided to go to my phone and I saw that I had a lot of voicemails i never deleted, (240 to be exact) and when I deleted them it made a huge dent! i got back over 4 gigs! I can assume that what's ap it taking up a lot too with the pics and vids in that application too. So check your voicemails, and make sure you are deleting them completely, by clearing "deleted messages". Hope this helps, good luck!!

  • by socasue,

    socasue socasue Oct 27, 2014 8:23 PM in response to NYCARR
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 27, 2014 8:23 PM in response to NYCARR

    I use my iPad to surf the web, and the website data was what killed me. I finally figured out going to general, useage, manage storage, Safari, website data, and then delete at the very bottom removed 8 gigs on my 15 gig iPad. Until you go all the way in there it doesn't show how much data is actually being sucked into the "other". Something changed in the settings last release, because this never happened before.

     

    Apple seems determined to aggravate and frustrate customers as much as possible. Makes me wonder if other tablets are better,

  • by wildflower mom,

    wildflower mom wildflower mom Oct 29, 2014 9:35 AM in response to socasue
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 29, 2014 9:35 AM in response to socasue

    I have a 32 GB iPhone 5 with iOS 8.1. My music library is 12.2 GB, and I have 35 apps at 2.27 GB. After adding about 10 new CDs to my iTunes library I tried to sync to my phone. I received a message that I was over capacity and couldn't sync. My "Other" files had jumped to over 14 GB! I tried restoring the backup, rebooting both my phone and iTunes on my MacBook, deleting unwanted music, all old texts and voicemails, etc. Nothing impacted the "Other" more than a few MB. I finally tried the "Restore iPhone" to completely wipe my phone, then restored it from an earlier back-up. My "Other" file shrank to what I believe should be its proper size: 998.8 MB, down from over 14 GB! My entire music library synced successfully, and I have 9.48 GB of free space. Yes, it took a LONG time to work through this, and it was extremely inconvenient and inefficient, but it did seem to fix the problem.

  • by Scottyboy99,

    Scottyboy99 Scottyboy99 Nov 14, 2014 6:01 AM in response to wildflower mom
    Level 1 (85 points)
    Apple Watch
    Nov 14, 2014 6:01 AM in response to wildflower mom

    What a load of garbage apple is over this 'other' data. In the space of a few weeks I have lost several hundred megabytes. I look on the phone, it says 17.5 gb used. Ok, fine. I go into the usage and add all the apps up (which includes photos, music, mail app, messaging) and it adds upto 15.5 gb. So where is the other 2 gb??? I do it again several weeks later and the gap between what it says is used and what the usage adds upto is now 2.5 gb. Where is it going? I don't sync the phone with iTunes so it's nowt to do with that. I never stream music on the app (purely to avoid cached data growing). I've only updated a handful of apps. Where does this sodding space go??? It's as if it eats up space when you just leave the phone sitting there. I reckon the loss is between 10-40 mb a day. It may not seem a lot but over time that is awful.

     

    Apple should provide something within app to look into the 'other' area and purge the data. I don't want the phone caching all and sundry and never releasing the space again. I know you can use computer programs like iExplorer but why should we have to do it - and at the end of the day I wouldn't want to poke through the various phone folders guessing at what's safe to delete and what's safe to leave. Even if something like phoneclean does free up some space the 'other' always creeps up again. Or if you do a cloud backup restore or restore as new it will always start creeping up again. Many users probably don't notice their space slowly ebbing away but it's always been an issue. Everyone I know with an iPhone when I have looked at their phones for them has the same issue. It's really rubbish and an issue that has existed across several iOS releases and different phones for me. Even my iPad does the same!!!

  • by useruseruseruseruser,

    useruseruseruseruser useruseruseruseruser Nov 23, 2014 7:19 PM in response to thenetquest
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Desktops
    Nov 23, 2014 7:19 PM in response to thenetquest

    THANKS!

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