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hafr

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Sep 21, 2011
2,743
9
I was looking through the settings of my phone and I realized that the 14,4 MB large app Facebook was using several hundred megabytes (almost half a gig!) of documents and settings. I deleted the app and reinstalled it to free up the space. But how common is this?

How much are your Facebook apps taking up, and why is it using so much space?
 

leitmotif

macrumors regular
Jun 27, 2011
158
1
Mine says: 196MB Documents & Data. Since I got my 4S it has been extremely slow, especially with re-loading the timeline.
 

MacMind.com

macrumors newbie
May 24, 2011
5
1
Santa Cruz, CA
FaceBook app on iPhone taking over 1.5GB of space?!?

Howdy,

Just thought I'd put this out there:

I noticed my iPhone had gotten 'full', mostly due to some long video's I had recorded. So, in seeking to free up some space on the iPhone, I looked at the list
I have no idea how or why, but I noticed that according to the iPhone's 'Settings -> General -> Usage'

indicated that the FaceBook app was using over 1.5Gb of space, I was shocked.

I have now deleted the FaceBook app, from both my iPhone and on my Macintosh's iTunes also.

The iPhone didn't seem to indicate any more free space, after giving it a minute or two, so thinking it might need a reboot, I powered it off, powered it on again, and it's been taking over 15-20+ minutes to boot up (stuck on the White Apple logo), and finally it booted up, and now reports the space as available.

I had no idea FaceBook could take up so much space, perhaps it wasn't clearing cache files over time as it probably should, but that's just a guess.

I will now reload it, and presumably it will start small, and start growing again over time, but I have no idea how or why it grew quite that large on my iPhone.

iPhone 4/iOS 5.0 (9A334)
 

DorkieDoode

macrumors newbie
Sep 17, 2012
8
0
To bring this back from the dead. My FB app took up a whooping 5.4GB in 7 months! Boy, I almost broke my neck in shock. Deleting it will bring it back down to 65mb.
 

sando88

macrumors newbie
Jul 4, 2013
26
0
Bulgaria
Facebook,twitter and other social network apps does that.In time they put a lot of temporary files on your device.The easiest thing to do,and basically the only thing to do is simply reinstall the app and you won`t have any problems until the next time.
 

NAVEEDpakistani

macrumors newbie
Apr 1, 2016
1
0
The best way to reduce social apps data consuming.. Go to setting..apps... Click that app.. Scroll down and click..clear data.. Re login.. Your problem solved..ENJOY
 

IvanX

macrumors 6502
Mar 10, 2012
339
104
The best way to reduce social apps data consuming.. Go to setting..apps... Click that app.. Scroll down and click..clear data.. Re login.. Your problem solved..ENJOY
Rubbish, the Facebook app on iOS does not have that option. From my understanding, the only way to free up space due to FB app hoarding it is to delete and re-install.
 

IvanX

macrumors 6502
Mar 10, 2012
339
104
The Temp files are removed automatically by iOS when more space is needed. You dont need to worry for that.
That "more space is needed" condition is only triggered when you've run out of space. The apps and iOS need to be proactive about this and remove -- or at least allow on-demand cleaning of -- cached content.
 
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