iPhone used storage space is increasing unfairly

Chad-VI · Mar 24, 2015

My iPhone 6 had about 2.5 GB of free storage , and I didn't download any app or anything like videos or something that would take too much storage. I usually check my usage settings constantly, and after checking the storage usage the same day, it had just 2.0Gb left. Where can the 500MB be used? I checked all my apps and none had used more storage than it did before. I restarted the phone and I still have 2.0GB left. What can I do? I am on iOS 8.2.

Newtons Apple · Mar 24, 2015

It sounds like "other". If you plug you phone into iTunes it will tell you how your memory is being used and you will see that "other" can elevate at times.

Not much you can do but only 2GB remaining would make me nervous.

Are you sure you need all the apps you have on it?

Woochifer · Mar 24, 2015

Chad-VI said:
My iPhone 6 had about 2.5 GB of free storage , and I didn't download any app or anything like videos or something that would take too much storage. I usually check my usage settings constantly, and after checking the storage usage the same day, it had just 2.0Gb left. Where can the 500MB be used? I checked all my apps and none had used more storage than it did before. I restarted the phone and I still have 2.0GB left. What can I do? I am on iOS 8.2.

If you recently updated or restored your phone, that's likely the system and app caches getting rewritten. Last week, as part of the iOS 8.2 update I restored my phone as new, and then reloaded the apps and data from an iTunes backup. That increased my free space from 5.5 GB to 7.1 GB, as the caches and a lot of downloaded app content got purged. Within a day, the free space had gone down to about 6.5 GB, as caches built back up and my iTunes Match directory got reloaded.

Also, if you use iTunes Match, any songs streamed from your playlists will stay on your phone for 30 days (unless you purge them by toggling iTunes Match on and off, or logging out of iCloud).

Also, over time the "Other" directory will accumulate garbage data that you cannot purge until you restore your phone. Much of this comes from botched downloads or interrupted syncing. If you do a lot of app and media downloads, or you don't have a reliable network connection, then the "Other" directory can grow quite large over time.

As a general rule of thumb, if the "Other" directory is 3 GB or more, then you definitely have a lot of junk data piled up and you'll need to restore your phone as new to free up the storage space. Just make sure that you have a backup, and restore from an iTunes backup using a wired connection if you want to keep stuff like your texts and game progress.

Chad-VI · Mar 24, 2015

Newtons Apple said:
It sounds like "other". If you plug you phone into iTunes it will tell you how your memory is being used and you will see that "other" can elevate at times.

Not much you can do but only 2GB remaining would make me nervous.

Are you sure you need all the apps you have on it?

Yeah I only have about 20 apps. And I don't think it's the "other" that is taking so much space because I do not store messages/voicemail etc... On my phone. But I have a problem with the "mail" storage , I delete my account and reboot the phone and when I check it , it is still taking 60mb of storage

. I really can't understand how 500mb can be used without adding anything to the device

Woochifer said:
If you recently updated or restored your phone, that's likely the system and app caches getting rewritten. Last week, as part of the iOS 8.2 update I restored my phone as new, and then reloaded the apps and data from an iTunes backup. That increased my free space from 5.5 GB to 7.1 GB, as the caches and a lot of downloaded app content got purged. Within a day, the free space had gone down to about 6.5 GB, as caches built back up and my iTunes Match directory got reloaded.

Also, if you use iTunes Match, any songs streamed from your playlists will stay on your phone for 30 days (unless you purge them by toggling iTunes Match on and off, or logging out of iCloud).

Also, over time the "Other" directory will accumulate garbage data that you cannot purge until you restore your phone. Much of this comes from botched downloads or interrupted syncing. If you do a lot of app and media downloads, or you don't have a reliable network connection, then the "Other" directory can grow quite large over time.

Yeah I updated to iOS 8.2 since it was available. So do you think it will recover the lost 500mb? Because I really hate to restore my phone

. I don't use iTunes match or even iCloud.

jrswizzle · Mar 24, 2015

Chad-VI said:
Yeah I only have about 20 apps. And I don't think it's the "other" that is taking so much space because I do not store messages/voicemail etc... On my phone. But I have a problem with the "mail" storage , I delete my account and reboot the phone and when I check it , it is still taking 60mb of storage. I really can't understand how 500mb can be used without adding anything to the device

Sounds like a trip to talk to an Apple Genius would help if you are near an Apple store. I think a little more hands on explanation of how the storage and caching works would help

!

Chad-VI · Mar 24, 2015

jrswizzle said:
Sounds like a trip to talk to an Apple Genius would help if you are near an Apple store. I think a little more hands on explanation of how the storage and caching works would help !

Haha I understand how caching works , but I just realized that the "others" is taking 2.44GB

Woochifer · Mar 24, 2015

Chad-VI said:
Yeah I only have about 20 apps. And I don't think it's the "other" that is taking so much space because I do not store messages/voicemail etc... On my phone. But I have a problem with the "mail" storage , I delete my account and reboot the phone and when I check it , it is still taking 60mb of storage. I really can't understand how 500mb can be used without adding anything to the device

Yeah I updated to iOS 8.2 since it was available. So do you think it will recover the lost 500mb? Because I really hate to restore my phone . I don't use iTunes match or even iCloud.

Plug your phone into iTunes. That will show you exactly how much space the "Other" directory takes up. If it's less than ~2.5 GB, then that's about normal.

Like I said, when you update to a new version of iOS, the system caches get purged and free up storage space. But, as you use your phone, those caches will build back up. Losing 500 MB in the days after an iOS update is not unusual, especially since the update also likely recovered a considerable amount of storage space as well.

The issue with the "Other" directory is getting rid of garbage data that just sits there doing nothing. The only way to clean that up is to restore the device as new, and then reload your apps and data. I do this about every other month (or alongside a major interval iOS update), to keep the "Other" directory under control since I do use iTunes Match.

jrswizzle · Mar 24, 2015

Chad-VI said:
Haha I understand how caching works , but I just realized that the "others" is taking 2.44GB

The "other" is routinely flushed out by the system as it cleans out unneeded, cached data. You simply happened to check the storage before the cache was purged.

Unless it's causing you to not be able to download an app at this time, I wouldn't worry about it. I'll find an article that explains this process - having trouble locating the one I read.

And if you are as OCD about your storage as it seems, I would suggest a 64 GB model next time (I assume you're on a 16 GB with only 20 apps and 2 GB left).

Perhaps a screenshot of your storage usage screen would help those here determine if there is anything else that can be done to free up space.

EDIT: I still can't find the article I'm thinking of. But I did find another that offers an easier solution than wiping and restoring your device. Some apps do NOT clear cache regularly and can build up over time. Uninstall the app, turn your phone off, then back on and reinstall the app will clear the cache and free up space.

Again, a screenshot (if you are willing to share, if not I completely understand) of your storage usage screen would help us determine if any apps are taking up more space than they should. Facebook is notorious for this.

For what it's worth, I've never managed the "Other" on any of my devices and don't have any issues. Though I also have 128 GB iPhone 6+ and iPad Air 2 and a 64 GB iPhone 6. My wife has a 16 GB and boatloads of pictures and never asks me about it though.

Chad-VI · Mar 25, 2015

Woochifer said:
Plug your phone into iTunes. That will show you exactly how much space the "Other" directory takes up. If it's less than ~2.5 GB, then that's about normal.

Like I said, when you update to a new version of iOS, the system caches get purged and free up storage space. But, as you use your phone, those caches will build back up. Losing 500 MB in the days after an iOS update is not unusual, especially since the update also likely recovered a considerable amount of storage space as well.

The issue with the "Other" directory is getting rid of garbage data that just sits there doing nothing. The only way to clean that up is to restore the device as new, and then reload your apps and data. I do this about every other month (or alongside a major interval iOS update), to keep the "Other" directory under control since I do use iTunes Match.

I plugged it and the " other" is taking 2.44GB

. I think you're right, I might need to do a full restore...

jrswizzle said:
The "other" is routinely flushed out by the system as it cleans out unneeded, cached data. You simply happened to check the storage before the cache was purged.

Unless it's causing you to not be able to download an app at this time, I wouldn't worry about it. I'll find an article that explains this process - having trouble locating the one I read.

And if you are as OCD about your storage as it seems, I would suggest a 64 GB model next time (I assume you're on a 16 GB with only 20 apps and 2 GB left).

Perhaps a screenshot of your storage usage screen would help those here determine if there is anything else that can be done to free up space.

EDIT: I still can't find the article I'm thinking of. But I did find another that offers an easier solution than wiping and restoring your device. Some apps do NOT clear cache regularly and can build up over time. Uninstall the app, turn your phone off, then back on and reinstall the app will clear the cache and free up space.

Again, a screenshot (if you are willing to share, if not I completely understand) of your storage usage screen would help us determine if any apps are taking up more space than they should. Facebook is notorious for this.

For what it's worth, I've never managed the "Other" on any of my devices and don't have any issues. Though I also have 128 GB iPhone 6+ and iPad Air 2 and a 64 GB iPhone 6. My wife has a 16 GB and boatloads of pictures and never asks me about it though.

Thank you very much for your help. I do delete regularly apps like Facebook, and Instagram and some others because they build up too much cache, so I don't think a screenshot of the storage would really help because I already know the normal size of each app ( again thanks for this), I have some apps like GTA:SA that takes ~2GB and some photography apps that take ~100mb each.
This isn't causing me to be unable to download an app, but as you guessed, I am bit OCD about my storage

. I didn't buy a 64GB one because I just wouldn't pay an extra $300 (in my country) for more storage, it's too overpriced.

Newtons Apple · Mar 25, 2015

No matter what you do to reduce "other" it will, in time, increase in size. A 16GB iPhone with a lot of apps will be a challenge to say the least.

In the end you are going to have to prioritize what you have/need on your phone.

jrswizzle · Mar 25, 2015

Chad-VI said:
I plugged it and the " other" is taking 2.44GB . I think you're right, I might need to do a full restore...

Thank you very much for your help. I do delete regularly apps like Facebook, and Instagram and some others because they build up too much cache, so I don't think a screenshot of the storage would really help because I already know the normal size of each app ( again thanks for this), I have some apps like GTA:SA that takes ~2GB and some photography apps that take ~100mb each.
This isn't causing me to be unable to download an app, but as you guessed, I am bit OCD about my storage. I didn't buy a 64GB one because I just wouldn't pay an extra $300 (in my country) for more storage, it's too overpriced.

Yikes

That's a lot of $$ for extra storage. Sorry I couldn't be of more help!

Chad-VI · Mar 27, 2015

jrswizzle said:
Yikes

That's a lot of $$ for extra storage. Sorry I couldn't be of more help!

Yeah

. Ok so I decided to restore the phone , but I am worried, if restore it from a backup, will the 2,44GB of "other" return? What should I do to get rid of it and keep my data?

richwoodrocket · Mar 27, 2015

I've learned to live with it. I'm rocking 3/4gb of other.

jrswizzle · Mar 27, 2015

Chad-VI said:
Yeah . Ok so I decided to restore the phone , but I am worried, if restore it from a backup, will the 2,44GB of "other" return? What should I do to get rid of it and keep my data?

What data do you want/need restored? Things like contacts, photos, documents are all stored in iCloud anyhow and can be pulled in even if you set the device up as new.

Chad-VI · Mar 27, 2015

jrswizzle said:
What data do you want/need restored? Things like contacts, photos, documents are all stored in iCloud anyhow and can be pulled in even if you set the device up as new.

I don't have iCloud enabed, I don't why, but I never liked the idea of cloud storage. The data I want to keep is my Apps data like savegames/photos... And of course photos in my camera roll, contacts... All the things that I already have on my phone.

So, If I restore from a backup will the "other" return? And when I restore it, should I restore it as new, and then from a backup or directly from a backup? Thanks.

jrswizzle · Mar 27, 2015

Chad-VI said:
I don't have iCloud enabed, I don't why, but I never liked the idea of cloud storage. The data I want to keep is my Apps data like savegames/photos... And of course photos in my camera roll, contacts... All the things that I already have on my phone.

So, If I restore from a backup will the "other" return? And when I restore it, should I restore it as new, and then from a backup or directly from a backup? Thanks.

To retain all that data, you'll need to restore from a backup. I think much of the other data will be cleared out but can't guarantee.

The only way to truly do so would be to store contacts, photos, gamesaves etc in iCloud (gamesaves can be saved in cloud via Game Center for supporting apps) and set up as new. You would need to download all your apps again.

I'm not sure that much more can be done unfortunately.

imagineadam · Mar 27, 2015

I've noticed as well for quite awhile my storage will rise and fall about 500mb-700mb on an almost daily basis. I'm pretty sure it's normal behavior of the iOS. I think it might have something to do with how iOS caches data. I see a process that pops up daily at random times called dailycachedelete that runs for a bit and then I check and presto the storage size changed a bit. So I'm just putting two and two together.

Newtons Apple · Mar 27, 2015

Chad-VI said:
Yeah . Ok so I decided to restore the phone , but I am worried, if restore it from a backup, will the 2,44GB of "other" return? What should I do to get rid of it and keep my data?

Restore will help only for a while as it WILL come back.

Woochifer · Mar 27, 2015

Chad-VI said:
Yeah . Ok so I decided to restore the phone , but I am worried, if restore it from a backup, will the 2,44GB of "other" return? What should I do to get rid of it and keep my data?

Over time it probably will; unless the "Other" directory also has a lot of accumulated junk data, in which case you will see a net gain in free space. Judging by your current 2.44 GB of "Other" data, that's already close to normal, so it doesn't seem like you have a lot of junk data that needs to be purged.

If you restore the device as new, and then restore your apps and data from an iTunes backup, all of that data will be returned. You just have to re-enter your passcode and rescan your fingerprint(s) for Touch ID. And when iOS prompts you to activate iCloud Drive, remember to say no.

Like I said, I do this restore-as-new/restore-from-backup routine about every other month to clean out the "Other" directory because I use iTunes Match. It's not a daunting task. Just make sure that you backup your phone before doing anything.

----------

Chad-VI said:
I don't have iCloud enabed, I don't why, but I never liked the idea of cloud storage. The data I want to keep is my Apps data like savegames/photos... And of course photos in my camera roll, contacts... All the things that I already have on my phone.

So, If I restore from a backup will the "other" return? And when I restore it, should I restore it as new, and then from a backup or directly from a backup? Thanks.

Restoring as new is the only way to purge the junk data from the "Other" directory. You will clear out some of the app caches if you just restore from a backup (without restoring as a new device first). But, a lot of those app caches will eventually build back up over time.

iCloud will not restore anything that you do not sync to the cloud. That's why I also don't use iCloud. Also, restoring from an iCloud backup requires you to re-download all your apps, which would take forever on my home connection.

----------

jrswizzle said:
To retain all that data, you'll need to restore from a backup. I think much of the other data will be cleared out but can't guarantee.

The only way to truly do so would be to store contacts, photos, gamesaves etc in iCloud (gamesaves can be saved in cloud via Game Center for supporting apps) and set up as new. You would need to download all your apps again.

I'm not sure that much more can be done unfortunately.

A local backup to iTunes can actually do a better job of restoring the phone back to its current state after purging the cache and junk data. iCloud will only restore those specific items that are synced with the phone, while the local iTunes backup will restore everything (except the passcode and Touch ID fingerprints). iCloud also does not restore text messages, and some app data. And for people like me with a relatively slow internet connection, having to download all my apps would take all day.

Chad-VI · Mar 28, 2015

jrswizzle said:
To retain all that data, you'll need to restore from a backup. I think much of the other data will be cleared out but can't guarantee.

The only way to truly do so would be to store contacts, photos, gamesaves etc in iCloud (gamesaves can be saved in cloud via Game Center for supporting apps) and set up as new. You would need to download all your apps again.

I'm not sure that much more can be done unfortunately.

Thanks for your help, I think I'll restore the phone. Somehow, I have a strange thing happening, (I don't know if it's normal), but even with no accounts in the mail app, it is taking 60Mb of storage. Is that normal (just building up some cache)?

Woochifer said:
Over time it probably will; unless the "Other" directory also has a lot of accumulated junk data, in which case you will see a net gain in free space. Judging by your current 2.44 GB of "Other" data, that's already close to normal, so it doesn't seem like you have a lot of junk data that needs to be purged.

If you restore the device as new, and then restore your apps and data from an iTunes backup, all of that data will be returned. You just have to re-enter your passcode and rescan your fingerprint(s) for Touch ID. And when iOS prompts you to activate iCloud Drive, remember to say no.

Like I said, I do this restore-as-new/restore-from-backup routine about every other month to clean out the "Other" directory because I use iTunes Match. It's not a daunting task. Just make sure that you backup your phone before doing anything.

Thank you for your help, I will restore it as new then from a backup as soon as I have some free time to do this.

Nishant22 · Apr 19, 2015

iPhone 6 storage

Chad-VI said:
My iPhone 6 had about 2.5 GB of free storage , and I didn't download any app or anything like videos or something that would take too much storage. I usually check my usage settings constantly, and after checking the storage usage the same day, it had just 2.0Gb left. Where can the 500MB be used? I checked all my apps and none had used more storage than it did before. I restarted the phone and I still have 2.0GB left. What can I do? I am on iOS 8.2.

I am a Apple user and I am not satisfied with the iPhone 6 storage space. But, you have to manage it. In my early days with iPhone 6, I cursed myself for buying this product as I hate low storage and also, there is no external storage option. I followed the following steps to get my storage back. http://www.gadgetgyaan.com/guide/ho...capacity-of-iphone-6-iphone-6-plus-more-2028/

iPhone used storage space is increasing unfairly

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