iPhone's "other" in iTunes

[dethklok7]

Question out of curiosity. In itunes when it shows you how much space you've used up in your iphone with music/photos/ect it also lists other. What is exactly that other? Could it possibly be cydia and installer or is it something else?

[vivithemage]

I have 200-250MB of OTHER in my itunes when I look up my iphone first generation.

My friend also has 300-350mb of other...

Both of our phones are jailbroken/unlocked.

Is it saved games or something?

[Warbrain]

Originally Posted by vivithemage

I have 200-250MB of OTHER in my itunes when I look up my iphone first generation.

My friend also has 300-350mb of other...

Both of our phones are jailbroken/unlocked.

Is it saved games or something?

Other is filesystem, jailbrake data...

[mgpg89]

Originally Posted by vivithemage

I have 200-250MB of OTHER in my itunes when I look up my iphone first generation.

My friend also has 300-350mb of other...

Both of our phones are jailbroken/unlocked.

Is it saved games or something?

Yes.

Anything from application (non-iTunes apps), saved games, stored files (using OpenSSH for example) etc ...

Anything that takes up space and can not be recognized by iTunes, shows up as 'other'.

[MBX]

Hi there

what exactly is "other" on the iphone disk?

It's taking up like 520mb on my 8gb iphone and i already had to delete some albums and other things to gain space and now again it increased and now have "zero" free space left.

Is it some sort of temporary cache? Any way to flush it?

[robbieduncan]

Other includes all the data saved by installed applications. Have you got any apps installed that might save large amounts of local data?

[Bowlerguy10]

It's also things like album metadata and artwork!

[Guiyon]

IIRC, the "Other" also includes the operating system for the iPhone. Not exactly something you want to nuke...

[JPIndustrie]

Are you jailbroken with JB'ed apps? I think part of the 'other' are the JB programs and their associated files too. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[RogueVasion]

I have asked the same thing, haha. I have like 3GB of mysterious space.

EDIT: My thread was moved here...kind of flabbergasted me at first, haha.

I have a 16GB White iPhone 3G, and it has 14.64GB of space when you get it of course. But, when I plug it into iTunes, it says there is 2.96GB of space used (named Other). I only have 483 songs, 12 photos, and 44 apps which takes up a total space of not even 3.5GB

Would anyone have an idea on what this is? I did jailbreak my iPhone a while back, but I brought it back to its vanilla state (if that makes a difference).

[mkrishnan]

Originally Posted by RogueVasion

I have asked the same thing, haha. I have like 3GB of mysterious space.

EDIT: How did my post end up in here...weird.

Please search to find existing threads on a topic before posting a new one. Posts that repeat existing threads will generally be merged where possible.

In your case, that's pretty extreme. I don't think there are many apps that could account for that kind of space. You might want to consider restoring your firmware (which sometimes help drive down the Other space if there's stuff that shouldn't be in there).

[jshepherd2]

I just got a 3GS and look at my other. Whats the point of having 32GBs when almost half is used by hidden things?

[acmeplus]

This is clearly a 3.0 bug. I added today about 8GB of music to the iphone, and now this "Audio" space has mysteriously transformed into "Other". The music is completely gone from the iphone, so I believe the internal database is corrupted.



Note: This is with a 3G 16GB

[iChickan]

Originally Posted by acmeplus

This is clearly a 3.0 bug. I added today about 8GB of music to the iphone, and now this "Audio" space has mysteriously transformed into "Other". The music is completely gone from the iphone, so I believe the internal database is corrupted.

Attachment 178142

Note: This is with a 3G 16GB

My beloved 16gb iPhone has 11.3 gb of the available 14 allocated to other which I cannot delete. This is approximately the size of my iTunes library before it "dissappeared" so I am assuming that acmeplus is spot on and the database has corrupted.

Restoring my iPhone back to basics and resynching fixed me up perfectly...except for a minor loss of application data

[Xellos]

I found the solution to this for me was going into the Media folder within iPhone and deleting the files located in /Photos/Thumbs/ and then resyncing. In my case it was storing over 3 GB of picture information when there was much less than that in pictures.

[EugeneSA]

A portion of it appears to be corrupted sync files i.e. music, photo's etc due to a connection break while syncing. Restore

[Sandy B]

My phone keeps telling me it's out of space. Since I don't have that much stored, it seems unreasonable. I note that my "other" space is huge. I would expect that my audio is the stuff I have in itunes, and I recognize my apps space, but I can't put photos in because of space problems. Does anyone know what exactly is in the "other" file? How do I get rid of it? Would a fairly large address book be the reason my space is so limited?

[-aggie-]

Originally Posted by Sandy B

My phone keeps telling me it's out of space. Since I don't have that much stored, it seems unreasonable. I note that my "other" space is huge. I would expect that my audio is the stuff I have in itunes, and I recognize my apps space, but I can't put photos in because of space problems. Does anyone know what exactly is in the "other" file? How do I get rid of it? Would a fairly large address book be the reason my space is so limited?

Did you read the rest of this thread and the other threads on "other?"

First, NO, an address book would have nothing to do with this.

You're "other" is probably music or photos that didn't sync properly. You can try rebooting your phone (press home and power buttons until phone turns off and then resyncing. If that doesn't work, I'd suggest restoring in DFU mode and either restoring from a backup or restoring as new and resyncing, if the backup doesn't work.

[Sandy B]

Thanks Aggie
I did a restore and now I have tons more space on my phone. Just a little bit of "other" there now. The programs work faster too.

[betyar]

This is indeed a disconnect during sync and it is your iTunes music library that has been corrupted. If your phone is Jailbroken, you can SSH into it and manually remove your music from your iPhone and re-sync to dump it back on later. No need for a system restore.

If your iPhone isn't jailbroken, you are **** out of luck! You may as well jailbreak while your restoring everything, at least you'll have better luck next time this bug manifests its ugly head.

Originally Posted by acmeplus

This is clearly a 3.0 bug. I added today about 8GB of music to the iphone, and now this "Audio" space has mysteriously transformed into "Other". The music is completely gone from the iphone, so I believe the internal database is corrupted.

Attachment 178142

Note: This is with a 3G 16GB

[mac692]

Betyar, thanks for the Tip! Can you provide a step by step to delete your iTunes music using ssh or terminal? Thanks again

[betyar]

The absolute easiest way to do this is using iFuntastic's 'File Manager'... Follow this path:

/private/var/mobile/Media/iTunes_Control/Music/

You will see a bunch of numbered folders. Delete all of them, reboot your device and re-sync with iTunes. DO NOT RESTORE YOUR DEVICE!

Voila, the growing "other" and disappearing iTunes library bug solved - without a restore.


Hope that helps.

Originally Posted by mac692

Betyar, thanks for the Tip! Can you provide a step by step to delete your iTunes music using ssh or terminal? Thanks again

[pliundemix]

Originally Posted by betyar

The absolute easiest way to do this is using iFuntastic's 'File Manager'... Follow this path:

/private/var/mobile/Media/iTunes_Control/Music/

You will see a bunch of numbered folders. Delete all of them, reboot your device and re-sync with iTunes. DO NOT RESTORE YOUR DEVICE!

Voila, the growing "other" and disappearing iTunes library bug solved - without a restore.


Hope that helps.

DUDE something went wrong I deleted these files you said and other was gone in my itunes....I have the audio, image and apps...but I went into my iphone and tried playing a song and it didn't play it..it just kicked me back to the song list whenever I touch play on a song...My music is showing up...and also in itunes but I can't play it...what is wrong??what should I do??

thanks!

[betyar]

pliundemix, Sorry to hear about your problem. That solution has worked for me in the past, without a hitch.

I would suggest re-boot via a hard reset and check again. If that doesn't work, re-sync... then check again.

Keep in mind, the expanding 'other' is your iTunes database that is corrupted, so you need to re-sync after the delete. Try again, and please keep me posted.

Best of luck.

Originally Posted by pliundemix

DUDE something went wrong I deleted these files you said and other was gone in my itunes....I have the audio, image and apps...but I went into my iphone and tried playing a song and it didn't play it..it just kicked me back to the song list whenever I touch play on a song...My music is showing up...and also in itunes but I can't play it...what is wrong??what should I do??

thanks!

[pliundemix]

Originally Posted by betyar

pliundemix, Sorry to hear about your problem. That solution has worked for me in the past, without a hitch.

I would suggest re-boot via a hard reset and check again. If that doesn't work, re-sync... then check again.

Keep in mind, the expanding 'other' is your iTunes database that is corrupted, so you need to re-sync after the delete. Try again, and please keep me posted.

Best of luck.

How do I make a "hard reset"??? Please help me cause this "other" won't go...just grows...