How do I reclaim iPhone storage space taken up by 'Other'?

How do I reclaim iPhone storage space taken up by 'Other'?

We've been getting numerous reports of users, who have attempted to sync their iPhones after the latest iTunes updates (7.4.x), finding that iTunes shows space on their iPhone occupied by something specified only as 'Other'. Often, this space may be only small amounts (a few megabytes), but we have received reports of 'Other' taking up as much as 4 gigabytes.

Unfortunately, scouring available information sources and speaking with Apple hasn't led to any type of easy resolution.

If you're experiencing this issue under any version of iTunes, you'll need to restore your iPhone to reclaim the space occupied by Other. That is the only known solution at this time.

If you've found another solution to the 'Other' issue, please let us know.

Presumably this issue will be rectified by the next iTunes update.

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UPDATE: User Andrew S. said he deleted "a substantial number of text threads containing pictures and videos" to clean out half of the "Other" storage on his phone. Andrew claims he went from having zero free space to 1.88GB by using this technique.

tags: 
Storage
iTunes
Troubleshooting
Syncing
Storage
iTunes
Troubleshooting
Syncing

Comments

Anonymous replied on

well i have had the same problem but on my ipod and it has been anoying me alot, i have been researching on how to get some of my memory back and nothing has really helped, so i just randomly went on my camera roll and deleted quite a lot of videos, then i went to check on my usage and i gained 2.8 GB and now im so happy yaaay!! hope this helps in anyways to gain your memory back. sorry if it dont

Anonymous replied on

There could be a glitch or issue with my phone but "other is taking up 8.9 gigabytes of storage and I can not do anything with my iphone 5 now. Does anyone know what could cause that much storage to be used up?

iJD replied on

Found this aplication. Seems to be helpful, atl least it help me reduce the OTHER space used.

http://www.imobie.com/phoneclean/

Anonymous replied on

ok... so I reset my phone and tries getting rid of a bunch of stuff manually but the iphone sync bar still showed I had over 6G's in being used up.... then I looked at the usage graph on my phone and it says that that space is free... so I guess my PC is not reading my iphone usage correctly.
not sure which metre is correct. im not going to worry about it until I need more space.

Jayden replied on

Also, if your Device is Jailbroken, try deleting the iFile trash located at: /var/mobile/library/iFile/Trash

Anonymous replied on

The "other" on my ipad has taken up 6.36 GB of data

Anonymous replied on

"other" was 2.12 GB so I went through every fix on the internet including wiping the phone and setting up as a new phone. Now have music, 13 apps, no photos, videos, notes, web history or anything else on phone............................ "other" is now 3.75 GB!!!!! Dustbin beckons.......

jadyn replied on

i restored my phone about a week ago and it cleared most of the other space but i just synced my phone again and the other bar is back up there taking up most of the memory on my phone! im restoring it again but i dont want to have to restore my phone every week.

Anonymous replied on

I MANAGED TO CLEAR 30GIG FROM OTHERS CLEARING THE GENIUS LISTS.

Anonymous replied on

I have been so frustrated with my phone lately. I could not take any pictures and it was so slow. I finally realized that all of my emails I deleted stayed in my trash folder this whole time. Deleted them.. instant 4 gb. Talk about a "duh" moment!!

Shelly replied on

I just experienced this with a new "other" that took up ALL of my remaining 39GB!?! Wtf?

sean replied on

I too have the "other" virus, consuming a whopping 46 gigs on my iphone 5s.. there is no hope for support.. apple blames the customers.. forcing you to reformat your phone. disgusting.. i feel as if their quality has dropped severely to that of droid platform devices.. they no longer need to maintain a prestigious brand and patch issues. they have a massive cult following willing to accept "the customer is at fault for faulty update processes" name it 'data corruption' in a shoddy way to dodge this issue. welcome to the new apple. now proceed to a third party program to handle your own issue. apple washed their hands of the duplicate backup "other" storage virus as soon as it emerged.. i had no idea an apple product could succumb to a terrible glitch as this. 46 gigs.. "lets name it uh... OTHER. yeah thats it!" back up files and temporary files are much more important so they can keep an eye on every single move you make. i couldnt even use my phone bc backups were being made to span every inch of my drive.. i had to delete my spotify and erase tons of videos to use my phone... although they are STILL on the phone.. hidden in backups in case THEY want to access them? 350k hits on youtube video to solve the problem with a 3rd party program LOL.............cant wait til they make iphone 7.. maybe it will have 2 layers of backup folders just in case they feel like adding an extra backup on your dime... i thought thats what itunes was for...?

Anonymous replied on

My "Other" takes up 12.51 GB. I want that back. Every time I sync to iTunes I lose storage. Example: say I have 1GB when I start the sync, I will have around 200-350MB left. What happens to the rest??

Anonymous replied on

DELETE Facebook messenger!!!!!!

JB iOS 7.0.6 5s 64b replied on

I deleted all the files in /var/mobile/media/iTunes_Control/Music using iFile
Then I opened the music app and hit the playlist with all my songs on it. It auto-deleted all of them. I hit the audiobook section and opened my book up and had to delete it myself because it wouldn't auto-delete. I opened the podcast section and pulled refresh and all the episodes 'went to cloud' I made the video app crash/delete every video in my library.
Finally I restarted my phone and connected it to itunes. iTunes figured it out and started syncing all of it back. I went from over 7GB of Other to 1.42GB. AMAZING. No restore required.

I suppose I could try to track the duplicates in that folder and delete the ones that are no longer 'linked' but it's just easier to do the method that has the least steps. I've noticed for me it happens when iTunes copies 1000 or more tracks that it already had on there, along with a really long wait time on the last sync step 5,6, or 7

Thanks for clue-ing me into the /private/var/ area. This is the single most helpful comment thread ever!

Anonymous replied on

So my 8 GB ipod had about half its memory overrun by other. I deleted all my messages and voila! i got like 2 or 3 GB of my memory back!

Anonymous replied on

you can just get icleaner on cydia and itll fix the problem. It did to me

Hammad replied on

You can also claim the space occupied by
Downloading tongbu on your pc or Mac the
Link for downloading tonbu is www.tongbu.com
This website is in Chinese but you can translate
It

Hammad replied on

You can also claim the space occupied by
Downloading tongbu on your pc or Mac the
Link for downloading tonbu is www.tongbu.com
This website is in Chinese but you can translate
It

JimmyWalt replied on

here is another way to do that, watch this video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ILHNHJvJkA

Anonymous replied on

This is ridiculous, I have over 7gb of "other" being taken up in my NEW iphone 5s. I've had so many problems since updating itunes I'm about ready to switch over to a Samsung phone if Apple doesn't get their sh*t together.

Anonymous replied on

I'm having the same issue. I synced my iphone 5s and my 'other' category launched from 850mb to a staggering 5gb. Apparently, from what I could find out on official apple support forums, is that this happens with a "corrupted sync" Tragically, the only way to really clear out the 'other' is to do a 'restore' of your phone. This is seriously problematic when there's a "new" ios that you don't want on your phone, (ie. ios 8 - which has had nothing but problems from the day it launched). So, you can either "jailbreak" your phone so you can go in and manually delete all the crap you don't need, or you can restore your phone, but then have to update to a crap ios that is like to Win ME. Here's the catch. If you 'jailbreak your phone, you void the warranty and any AppleCare + you paid $100+ for. So, you can't do that. Also, if you don't know beans about the file system in the phone, you can accidentally delete a directory that the phone needs in order to operate. What apple needs to do, is to figure out a way to fix a 'corrupted' sync, rather than releasing mediocre updates and products (ie. iphone 6 & 6+, ios 8). Forcing people to restore their ios devices, so they have to install that "latest and greatest" (which isn't always the case) is liken to gestapo enforcement. I HIGHLY doubt that I'll be getting another apple product again; especially since my ipad mini, w/ret display 16gb has had more memory crashes than the worst case of Alzheimer and Dementia combined (chiefly while Safari is the only app running).

Anonymous replied on

I deleted all my text threads and then went in and said to delete messages after 30 days. But it's still listing my iMessage as taking up 4.7gb of space and I know that's not true. I just transferred to a new iPhone 6, and don't have a ton on here. Even after putting my old phone stuff on here I went through and deleted a lot. I've restarted my phone after deleting things thinking that it just has to reset, but it's not helping.

XzunderX replied on

Try this. It is part 1 of a couple of ways I found but it solved my problem.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvmpL9RxEjU&feature=youtu.be

Ryan replied on

Any solution to this problem yet as my new last week iphone 6 has accumulated 29.0GB!!!!!! of 'Other' usage!?

Thanks

Anonymous replied on

Alternatively one can try the following:
Use a software like imazing to access the media content of the iOS device.
Navigate to File System / Media / CloudAssets
This place is most likely the location where temporary or orphaned files are stored.
Delete the content and this should free up quiet a lot!

Abby Carter replied on

Some of you may think the Other on your iPhone is the pure OS taken space or Safari, email temporary data. But that's not the complete answer.

Yes, part of that Other space on iPhone is taken up by the operating system running on your iPhone. For this part, this is no way to reclaim more free space from that. However, the Other part of iPhone storage space also contains sort of caches and temp files generated by App and iTunes syncs, and some of them won't be used long-term. You need to remove these junk files and this will help you reclaim space. PhoneClean is a good cleaning tool for iPhone.

Lex replied on

Also check this main advices about setting your iPhone to not filling up

  • Use iCloud Photo Library
  • Don't use iCloud Photo Sharing
  • Set up Video Quality in Camera settings
  • Don't keep normal photos in HDR Mode
  • Set Messages to automatically expired
  • Delete media attachments from iMessages
  • Remove old unneeded apps
  • Reinstall Apps with big system files
  • Periodically clear safari cache and cookies
  • Delete unneeded notes with media attachments
  • Set podcasts to automatically delete after listening
  • Use music streaming services
  • Use interPhotos to delete photo copies

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