When I recently plugged in my phone to my imac to do a backup on my phone, I find out I have 2G of " Other " using up space on my iphone5s, I do not believe this is operating system use as it was not there in the past few months....I want to clear it but can't seem to find a solution....any help out there would be appreciated
iMac (27-inch, Late 2013), OS X Mavericks (10.9.1)
Back it up using iTunes on your computer. Then, restore iOS using the 'restore' button in iTunes, then restore your backup. That should reduce it substantially.
Back it up using iTunes on your computer. Then, restore iOS using the 'restore' button in iTunes, then restore your backup. That should reduce it substantially.
Ok, but does this destroy my settings, contacts, app's, music, etc..? What will I loose?
and
How to I keep this from happening in the future?
and
what is this " other " stuff anyway?
Thanks
S
You shouldn't lose anything. "Other" consists largely of caches and working files. Sometimes, corruption can creep in, causing it to expand.
Ok...thanks very much...I have icloud backups and imac backup to restore from so as I understand it I should be covered...BTw..any idea what would cause this corruption, as I rarely download, have very few apps, hardly surf the web....and only have about 7 songs on my phone as I use itunes match, which I HAVE been updating a lot recently as I've been adding new play lists....any thoughts so I can prevent this in the future?
S
It seems to happen naturally over time. In theory, it shouldn't, but apps don't always clean up after themselves well. Games can leave things behind, the mail database can leave fragments of deleted messages and attachments behind, etc. As apps have grown over the years, and gotten more complex, it seems to happen more. Every time an app quits unexpectedly, it tends to leave saved state information out there. Compared to PCs it's actually pretty good about cleaning up after itself, but... well, it just happens. 25+ years in systems management may have jaded me a little bit... I'm just used to cleaning up after sloppy programs. Not making a statement about iOS here. It's based on OS X, which is based on the BSD UNIX kernel. It's one of the 'cleanest' OS's around.
How much "other" you have and how much is 'normal' for the mix of apps and the way you use your phone will vary. Mine tends to sit just below 2GB. If it gets close to or over 3, I backup, restore iOS, and restor my backup. That gets it under control again. I don't usually have to do that more than about once or twice a year. Actually, with iOS updates coming out almost every year like clockwork, if you update using iTunes instead of over the air, it takes care of doing that for you.
thanks
Well as i said I don't do games, much surfing, few app's, my music is on itunes match, etc... I got this phone in October and i reboot at least once a week...let me ask you this before I do this restore deal....I backup to wifi about once a every other week, as I don't always have access, and the rest of the time I back up weekly to my imac...If I'm doing a restore from these backups, couldn't these backups have the corrupted files in them and in turn just get reinstalled back on to my phone?
thanks for your help
I've beeb a 17yr PC user and now a 2month imac user and a 6month iphone user...still getting use to things but mostly glad I did it....except for bumps in the road like this that are not solved
thanks
It's possible that the backups contain some corruption, but unlikely. Caches, etc. are not part of the normal backup process.
Ok thanks....I'm going to try this a little later tonight and I'll let you know.....still a little bit of fear about losing stuff, perhaps old behaviors from PC days...lol
Shouldn't be a big deal provided you're actually syncing contacts and calendars to something (not just backing up). Back up manually before you do the restore of iOS, and make sure to transfer your purchases. I just did it last week. No issues at all, and restoring from the Mac is much faster than restoring from iCloud.
Remember that you need to make sure audiobooks and ringtones are in the iTunes library on your computer before you restore iOS. Those items will be lost if they're not and they are not re-downloadable.
Sounds like you stay pretty much on top of things, though.
In addition to what has already been mentioned; if you haven't installed the latest iOS version it may be that the latest version has already been downloaded but yet to be installed.
If settings has a # 1 Badge highlighted check Software Update to see if that's the case.
By installing it you will recover "most" of your other but most likely just under a Gb will still remain. If you choose not to install the update you will always have at least 2Gb of other memory.
How to I clear " Other ' on my iphone5s usage?
