iphone 6 has 50gb of "other" data

I'm having this problem, too. The syncing on iOS8 to iPhone 6 is terrible. Please give me something to fix this, Apple.

What is "Other" and What Can I Do About It?

"Other" can include...

1. Browser cache
2. Mail cache
3. Mail messages
4. Mail attachments
5. Safari's Reading List
6. iTunes Backups
7. Crud resulting from jailbreaking your iDevice
8. Game data
9. Saved data files
10. Call history
11. Notes
12. Media
13. Voice memos

That may seem feasible for 1 or 2 GB, but not 50. The 50GB appeared virtually overnight after updating to Yosemite.

From the start iphone 6 has been a nightmare to synch.... worst experience of any new phone ever.

Same problem here so working on a restore. Strangely, this has only happened with my daughter's iPhone 6, not mine or my son's. 51.2 GB of "Other" is absolutely crazy.

WiseJD wrote:

"Other" can include...

1. Browser cache
2. Mail cache
3. Mail messages
4. Mail attachments
5. Safari's Reading List
6. iTunes Backups
7. Crud resulting from jailbreaking your iDevice
8. Game data
9. Saved data files
10. Call history
11. Notes
12. Media
13. Voice memos

Nice job of copying verbatim from What is "Other" and What Can I Do About It?, which has already been posted to this thread.

I second Redshrink's assessment that the list linked and pasted in the thread do not provide explanation for the random appearance of 50 GB of data. On top of that... maybe a fix?

First... the TLDR version, and what fixed it for me:

While syncing my phone (iPhone 6, iOS 8.1.1) to iTunes to update some playlists, my used storage literally jumped from 50 GB free to 10 GB over capacity before my eyes. "Other" went from 2.5 GB to almost 60 GB. After some frustration figuring out where all this data came from - I unplugged the phone, restarted it, restarted the computer, relaunched iTunes, and synced again - magically I was back to about 50 GB available as I was expecting and synched without problem.

Some more details in case they're useful:

Device: 128 GB iPhone 6, iOS 8.1.1 / iMac 27", Mac OS 10.10.1, iTunes 12.0.1

Synch settings: Music (selected playlists), Movies (selected playlists), TV Shows (selected playlists), Books (none selected), Podcasts (5 most recent of selected), Ringtones (all), photos (not enabled)

I can't provide exact steps to reproduce, however, I can tell you that between synchs I had downloaded music and movies to my phone directly from the iTunes store. When I was synching and the issue occurred, it seemed that for some reason it was attempting to duplicate the media on my phone from previous synchs (movies and music that were already on my phone were showing as "transferring" in the iTunes status.) Attempting to restore from backup told me that my phone had "insufficient storage". About should approx. 100 MB available. After restarting the phone (power off -> Power on), "About" said about 50 GB available. Plugging into iTunes still showed phone as over capacity. Restarting the computer then completely resolved the issue.

Other is typically between 1 GB and 3 GB. It it goes higher than that it means there is corruption in the iPhone (or iPad) storage. This is most often caused by interrupting a sync in the middle. During sync content is sent to the phone and temporarily placed in Other, then, when the content transfer is finished, the "clean up" step sorts and organizes it. If the sync is interrupted the sorting never happens.

To fix the corruption you must restore iOS using iTunes. The first time you Restore you should choose to restore your backup (either iTunes or iCloud). If this fixes the problem, fine. If not, Restore again and set up the phone as New, then copy your content back to the phone manually.

I have had this happen several times on my daughters 64 Gb IPhone 5 and her new IPhone 6. The commonalities I have pinpointed is it usually occurs when the phone seems to hang in step 6 (waiting for changes to be applied) of the sync process. My daughter gets impatient and either stops then restarts the sync or she just disconnects the phone. Sometimes she did neither and it happened.

The only way I have been able to resolve is to do a factory restore of the phone, then restore it from a backup. During the first sync after the "restore from backup" I have to make sure I uncheck "Sync all music" and hit apply for the "Other" data to clear. This step is necessary for me as it is the music library that gets corrupted on my daughters phone. Probably the 7 zillion songs and 42000 playlists 🙂

Bmusgrove wrote:

I have had this happen several times on my daughters 64 Gb Iphone 5 and her new Iphone 6. The commonalities I have pinpointed is it usually occurs when the phone seems to hang in step 6 of the sync process. My daughter gets impatient and either stops then restarts the sync or she just disconnects the phone. Sometimes she did neither and it happened.

That will definitely cause a problem with Other. If it is disconnecting on its own you probably have a USB issue with your computer. Only use USB ports directly on the computer, not a USB hub, unless the hub has its own power source. And if it's a desktop or tower computer don't use ports on the front, only on the back. Absent a USB issue, a sync will always finish given enough time. But that could be an hour or more if you have made a lot of changes to the music selections.

The only solution I have tried that has succedded is to factory wipe then restore from a backup that was done before the problem occurred. That can be difficult as Apple won't let you keep multiple backups....

Apple DOES let you keep multiple backups. If you have a Mac go to iTunes preferences, Devices tab, right click on a backup and choose Archive. This backup will no longer be updated, and will be kept until you delete it. The next backup will be a new, "clean" backup. You can also restore backups from Time Machine if it is enabled on a Mac.

I don't have Windows, so I don't know if the latest version of iTunes for Windows supports this feature. Older versions did not. But you can still keep a backup by going to the backup location and renaming the 'backup' folder (to, say, 'backup.20141218'). The next time you back up it will create a new iTunes backup folder. Locations for the backup folder can be found in Create and delete iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch backups in iTunes - Apple Support. As with the Mac, if you have an automated backup program on your computer you can also restore older backups from that.

Finally, if you back up to iCloud, it preserves the 3 most recent backups, and you can restore any of the 3.

This is happening to me almost every time I try to sync my iPhone 6 (running iOS 8.1.2) with iTunes. I am able to resolve the issue by backing up, restoring the iPhone to factory settings and then restoring from the backup. I have had the iPhone 6 for less than 2 weeks and have had to restore in this way 5 times now. I have a 100GB music library and it takes forever to perform one of these restores. I have no confidence now that doing what is supposed to be a simple backup and sync is not going to corrupt my whole phone. Apple MUST address this bug as a matter of absolute urgency.

.

In 7 years this has never happened to me, so rather than assume it is an Apple bug perhaps you should troubleshoot why this happens to you, and not to the vast majority of iPhone users. Usually a sudden increase in Other is caused by an interrupted sync. Either you stopped it before it finished, or your USB connection is intermittent. To address the USB question only use a USB port directly on your computer, not a USB hub. If it is not a Mac and is a tower or desktop computer only use a USB port on the back, not the front (front ports are usually an internal hub).

An exception to the "no hub" guideline is it is usually OK to use a hub if it provides high power ports and is plugged in to its own power source that provides at least 1 amp plus 1 amp for every port on the hub (e.g., if the hub has 5 ports, the power unit should be able to supply 5 volts at 6 amps). In rare instances this is a better solution than a direct port on the computer if the computer is more than a few years old (older computers frequently do not supply the minimum 1/2 amp the iPhone requires for syncing).

Even if you use a direct port but have other high power USB devices (such as an external USB drive that does not have its own power supply) this can cause glitches on the USB bus that can interrupt a sync.

Apple DOES let you keep multiple backups. If you have a Mac go to iTunes preferences, Devices tab, right click on a backup and choose Archive. This backup will no longer be updated, and will be kept until you delete it. The next backup will be a new, "clean" backup. You can

also restore backups from Time Machine if it is enabled on a Mac.

I don't have Windows, so I don't know if the latest version of iTunes for Windows supports this feature. Older versions did not. But you can still keep a backup by going to the backup location and renaming the 'backup' folder (to, say, 'backup.20141218'). The next time you back up it will create a new iTunes backup folder. Locations for the backup folder can be found in Create and delete iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch backups in iTunes - Apple Support. As with the Mac, if you have an automated backup program on your computer you can also restore older backups from that.

Finally, if you back up to iCloud, it preserves the 3 most recent backups, and you can restore any of the 3.

ITunes for PC (10 and up at least) does not have the ability to archive old backups. Plus having to manually go into preferences and archive a backup kinda defeats the purpose of a automated backup scheme. most general users would not think to do that. At the very least Itunes could ask if you want a new one or overwrite the old one.

Personally I don't do iCloud backups. Personal preference. Besides, if iCloud does it, why not the local ITunes as well?

Bmusgrove wrote:

I have had this happen several times on my daughters 64 Gb IPhone 5 and her new IPhone 6. The commonalities I have pinpointed is it usually occurs when the phone seems to hang in step 6 (waiting for changes to be applied) of the sync process. My daughter gets impatient and either stops then restarts the sync or she just disconnects the phone. Sometimes she did neither and it happened.

The only way I have been able to resolve is to do a factory restore of the phone, then restore it from a backup. During the first sync after the "restore from backup" I have to make sure I uncheck "Sync all music" and hit apply for the "Other" data to clear. This step is necessary for me as it is the music library that gets corrupted on my daughters phone. Probably the 7 zillion songs and 42000 playlists 🙂

Let me add that when this first started I also traced down several corrupted music files on the phone. Most of these were songs she downloaded from "Free" streaming music apps, that then got imported into iTunes. Luckily I was able to locate them easily as the titles had also become corrupted. Anything with a gibberish title got canned.