iOS11 using so much storage

I ssue solved,

I

had the same issue, where my iphone 7 running on iOS 11 was showing system files about 21.59GB. I was unable to backup on ICloud as not enough storage, I deleted everything for the cloud, pictures, other devices backups.. still no luck with back ups..

after many attempts for backups I managed to free enough space on my laptop to backup my device. Then I restored it directly from iTunes, then used the backup files to restore data.

What I discovered was that WhatsApp was the issue, it was having a bug and showing all WhatsApp data (pictures, videos and text) all were listed under system.

Then I went to WhatsApp and deleted all the unnecessary conversations in the chats, all media and there it was... boom.

Storage came down to less than 5GB.

Backup working perfectly fine..

Hope this note is helpfull..

I have the solution! You need to restore your phone using iTunes! A previous comment was close, but Apple Support had me do it slightly different.

1. Make sure that you're using the latest version of iTunes.
2. If iTunes is already open, close it. Connect your device to your computer and open iTunes. If you don't have a computer, borrow one from a friend or go to an Apple Retail Store or Apple Authorized Service Provider for help.
3. While your device is connected, force restartit with these steps:
   • On an iPhone 8 or iPhone 8 Plus: Press and quickly release the Volume Up button. Then press and quickly release the Volume Down button. Finally, press and hold the Side button until you see the recovery-mode screen.
   • On an iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 Plus: Press and hold the Side and Volume Down buttons at the same time. Keep holding them until you see the recovery-mode screen.
   • On an iPhone 6s and earlier, iPad, or iPod touch: Press and hold both the Home and the Top (or Side) buttons at the same time. Keep holding them until you see the recovery-mode screen.
     
4. When you see the option to Restore or Update, choose RESTORE.
   
5. After the Restore completes, unplug your phone and set up your device.

Hi,

I had the same issue; please check for the following behaviours

1. When you open the iPhone Storage settings, the phone takes a long time populating the list and completing the category split

2. Some applications are missing from the list, and/or some are listing an unusually high storage usage value, expressed as a meaningless row of numbers like 10483947900478349204 which can't be a Gb value.

3. Some features in that app are not working; in my case: Whatsapp backup was not being completed as it asked for more space.

In my case, it was Whatsapp; sometimes it appeared with wrong storage values, sometimes it did not appear; it seems to me this started with failed backups due to network errors or interrupted backups; it then quickly escalates to being unable to backup Whatsapp, as more storage is needed to perform the backups

Resolution:

1. Try to find the space needed to complete that backup, this will allow you to void loosing any whatsapp data; choose to delete (including data) an app that's on top of the list which contains no "true" user-created data that cannot be restored from the Cloud, or choose to offload a few apps which are large (note that for some apps, user data is small, and the app is large. Good candidates for this: Spotify (just reinstall and re download local cache later), Email (if you are synching with the server). Consider selectively deleting media from group chat to make the backup smaller and make it fit.

2. Delete the app that has unreasonable storage or is not in the list; in my case, I removed Whatsapp. After you remove it, keep looking at the value for System Storage: I was over 28 Gb, it kept slowly but steadily getting smaller, to something around 14 Gb.

3. When you're absolutely sure it stops shrinking, restart the phone; reinstall Whatsapp. The backup will quickly reinstate all the messages, then will slowly restore all the media you had backed up.

4. Go to Storage Settings again: you'll notice the System Storage is still much smaller than before, and you should have plenty of space for future backups.

5. In Whatsapp, keep an eye on failed backup, as they may suggest something went wrong again.

Cheers.

1. Make sure that you're using the latest version of iTunes.
2. If iTunes is already open, close it. Connect your device to your computer and open iTunes. If you don't have a computer, borrow one from a friend or go to an Apple Retail Store or Apple Authorized Service Provider for help.
3. While your device is connected, force restart it with these steps:
   • On an iPhone 8 or iPhone 8 Plus: Press and quickly release the Volume Up button. Then press and quickly release the Volume Down button. Finally, press and hold the Side button until you see the recovery-mode screen.
   • On an iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 Plus: Press and hold the Side and Volume Down buttons at the same time. Keep holding them until you see the recovery-mode screen.
   • On an iPhone 6s and earlier, iPad, or iPod touch: Press and hold both the Home and the Top (or Side) buttons at the same time. Keep holding them until you see the recovery-mode screen.
     
4. When you see the option to Restore or Update, choose Update. iTunes will try to reinstall iOS without erasing your data. Wait while iTunes downloads the software for your device. If the download takes more than 15 minutes and your device exits recovery mode, let the download finish, then repeat these steps.
   
5. After the Update or Restore completes, set up your device.

I went to Apple genious bar to ask this, they told me to delete my iphone and reinstall all the apps manually rather than through the back-up. I did that, and it solved the problem but it takes a lot of time to download the apps, organize them, set everything the way you like them on your phone, etc.

I also had the same problem on my iPhone X the System storage was over 80GB. I tried deleting the WhatsApp, but that only made a small dent (79GB). What I did was cleared out my movies (only 1 movie was saved) from my Apple Videos app (TV app). Once removed the storage went down to 5GB.

No need to backup or restore anything.

I just spent some time with a good Apple Care advisors : if you have some files in your iCloud drive, this problem is caused by iCloud Drive. If you deactivate it, no more problem, and system storage goes back to normal. It worked for me.

Huye, you guys don’t seem to get it , Apple is doing this purposely ir order to make your iPhone obsolete. It’s also happening to me, on my iPhone 6s 16GB , the system uses around 7GB and I barely can use 4GB. They do this in order to make us ‘customers’ buy the new iPhones.It’s all about being unethical in order to make their business grow. We cannot do anything about it unless we as a community complain about it and get it over the media.

There are a few things you may do which will give your storage back temporarily:

1) reset your iPhone (clicking home button and sleep button)

2) make a back up copy with of your data and restore your iPhone on iTunes (this works but after certain it will be as before),then back up the copy.

This works and will give your storage back temporarily but as I said before Apple are golddiggers and see us as walking wallets. They want to make previous devices useless to buy the new ones. I have evidence , they did exactly the same thfing to the older iPhones, deliberately slowing them down so people were forced to buy new ones.

In my case also, the iPhone storage showed that the System is using 57GB of storage, I was also able to solve the problem by deleting Whatsapp data.

Hi,

Just go to WhatsApp, setting, storage usage, then you wil notice that there are huge media files.. u can delete all unnecessary media and for me I managed to clear a lot I think more than 15GB..

Once done you will be able to back again

Try to switch off iCloud Drive on phone. It helped me.

There was more than one suggestion in that answer. Did you backup your iPhone and restore it as a new iPhone and then check system storage?

Delete whatsapp and don't use it until apple comes up with a fix. This will solve the issue

So, my system storage increased from 4.5 Gb to 14.2Gb in one day after I restored my iPhone... Whatsapp doesn't have any media data in the storage, I cleared it all.

I think it a bug in iOS11 because I found many complaints from users on the Internet. Any new suggestions?

They won't be able to sort your issue unless you contact the support people. If everyone's iPhone was at that level of system storage they could do so but that is not the case. Call them or take it in.