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iPad 64 GB Wifi Has 6.2 GB Of "Other" in iTunes Capacity Bar? WTF?!

S

SkyeHack

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 23, 2010
43
0
How the hell do I get rid of that? I just use my iPad for apps and then use my iTouch for music. But for some reason there is 6.2GB of junk on my iPad. WTF?

Is it true if you do a backup that it DOESN'T backup your apps? I want to keep my apps. I spent a looong time looking for them and downloading them and it won't do a restore if I can't backup my apps. :( Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

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The Others seem to just creep up and up, and I'm not aware of a way of getting rid of them without doing a restore.

When I restore, it puts everything back where it was, including Apps, music, videos and in App data. I don't think the backup copies the Apps, but they are in your iTunes, and it just re-installs them from there.

Basically, whenever I restore (which I do periodically to get rid of the "others") I don't notice any difference afterwards, except for losing the "others".
 
I have the same recurring problem with both my Ipad and to a lesser extent my ipod touch. The fix is to perform a restore as previous poster mentioned. I found at the worst point that I had over 10GB of other, a restore brought that down to less than 1GB. Some of the other is necessary systems files, the rest is leftover clutter I guess. Would be nice if apple could find a fix to automatically clear the leftovers periodically without a restore.
 
I believe the backup backs up iPad settings and app data. It does not backup apps, music, movies, photos, books, etc. Those you need to backup yourself from your computer to another medium (external hard drive, DVD-ROM, etc). The apps are *.ipa files and are typically in a single folder so they are pretty easy to backup yourself.

If only your iPad dies, you can restore from your computer because all of the apps, movies, music, etc should still be there (assuming you haven't foolishly deleted them). If your computer dies, you will need the external backup in order to get your stuff back.
 
I was reading this thread while sitting next to a friend and he said he had the same problem and resetting Safari History, Cookies, and Cache cleared a couple gigs.

Maybe worth a try???
 
Are all of your devices jailbroken? I had an issue like this and the “other “ was third party applications that aren’t apple approved. I believe if you install appsync, this will take care of it and categorize that info properly.
 
The other can also be things like save games from apps and games. could also be the web browsing history and such, like someone else mentioned.

Just do a restore and see if thing improve, clear history and cookies. not sure what else could be causing it.

Any other temporary files that are on the device could also be doing this.
 
My iPhone has done that to me once or twice. I just always unplugged it and plugged it back in, and then the meter was correct.
 
The Tos said:
Are all of your devices jailbroken? I had an issue like this and the “other “ was third party applications that aren’t apple approved. I believe if you install appsync, this will take care of it and categorize that info properly.
Click to expand...

Mine isn't.

I tend to put videos on and take them off fairly regularly (I load my iPad up when I go away, and change them each time). That is the main cause of others building up for me. It almost always goes up when I swap videos.
 
KeithJenner said:
It almost always goes up when I swap videos.
Click to expand...

I have been having the exact same issue for the past two months now on my iPhone 4, iPad and even iPod nano 4th and 6th generation, and it does seem to happen more frequently when I add/remove videos, but not always. I search this forum (as well as others) and I was never able to come across anyone else with the same issue, so this past friday I made an appointment to the Genius Bar to see if they can help me find a solution. At the time, my 'other' was only at 2.5gb, but I had several screenshots showing up-to 6gb like the OP.

After explaining all of this to the Genius, he was stumped (and so where the two to other employees he asked to step in to help). His first guess was that their could be a corrupted file due to a 3rd party app (not jaiilbroken, from the App Store) that is causing this issue, but because this is also happening with my iPhone 4 and iPod nanos, he believes that the corrupted file could be in iTunes.

Not knowing how to pin-point the issue, I took the extreme steps to find a solution myself and I:
1. Deleted iTunes from my iMac (http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1224)
2. Deleted Back-Ups of all of my devices.
3. Deleted Restore Files of all of my Devices
4. Re-installed a new copy of iTunes directly from Apple.com
5. Restored my iPad/iPhone not from a back-up and from a new copy of iOS 4.2.1 Restore File.
6. Only installed 20 essential apps (down from 45) and did not Log-in to GameCenter (this was a possible issue the genius brought up).

Now, I'm not sure which solution worked the best, but since Friday, my 'Other' on both my iPad and iPhone has stayed at 350mb or less and hasn't moved (no matter how much media I add/remove).
 
That is one big "other"... Mine is around 0,5GB I believe. On the iPhone, I have noticed a restore can indeed perform miracles.

As for the backing-up of apps, do what BrennerM said. Get yourself a small portable usb-drive and copy your apps over as a backup.

PS: Nobody noticed his 'other' is 5.2GB, not 6.2GB? :p
 
Apps use storage, for example if you use Zinio it stores magazines. If you use Goodreader it stores PDFs and other documents. If you use ComicZeal it stores comic book files. Etc etc etc etc. This is what "Other" is, and it can add up.
 
pooryou said:
Apps use storage, for example if you use Zinio it stores magazines. If you use Goodreader it stores PDFs and other documents. If you use ComicZeal it stores comic book files. Etc etc etc etc. This is what "Other" is, and it can add up.
Click to expand...

It doesn't add up to the sizes that we are seeing. Not even close.

If I put three films on my iPad and then remove them then that doesn't increase the amount of PDF's that Goodreader is holding by 2gb.

If I restore my iPad then I still have my App data but the "other" can fall by 95%. I think the highest mine has gone is about 8gb.

It isn't a major problem because I just restore periodically, but it isn't right, and it isn't App data.
 
KeithJenner said:
If I restore my iPad then I still have my App data but the "other" can fall by 95%. I think the highest mine has gone is about 8gb.

It isn't a major problem because I just restore periodically, but it isn't right, and it isn't App data.
Click to expand...

I agree that after a restore the 'other' data does going down significantly, but it will always continue to creep up. But I have not been able to pin-point if the issue is iTunes or iOS (since the 'other' data also climbs up on both my iPod nano's that don't contain iOS, my 8gb nano had 1g of other), and only I seem to have this issue with my iDevices, but no one else in my family who all sync their devices on the same computer, but separate accounts.

After I applied my fix that I posted above, I haven't had this issue anymore, but I'm not sure if it will stay this way for long (knock on wood).
 
KeithJenner said:
It doesn't add up to the sizes that we are seeing. Not even close.

If I put three films on my iPad and then remove them then that doesn't increase the amount of PDF's that Goodreader is holding by 2gb.

If I restore my iPad then I still have my App data but the "other" can fall by 95%. I think the highest mine has gone is about 8gb.

It isn't a major problem because I just restore periodically, but it isn't right, and it isn't App data.
Click to expand...

Logic would say that there is some caching going on in addition to what I was talking about. If the space is there to be used, it's not hurting anything. There should be a way to flush the cache(s) without having to restore though.
 
pooryou said:
Apps use storage, for example if you use Zinio it stores magazines. If you use Goodreader it stores PDFs and other documents. If you use ComicZeal it stores comic book files. Etc etc etc etc. This is what "Other" is, and it can add up.
Click to expand...

This is NOT true. Goodreader and Zinio files show up under "Apps" I have a little over 16Gb in Goodreader and about 50 magazine files in Zinio, but my "Other" is only .8 Gb
 
pooryou said:
If the space is there to be used, it's not hurting anything.
Click to expand...

It's only happened to me once (I restore more regularly now), but I have had an instance where I couldn't fit everything I wanted onto my iPad because of the "others". The iPad didn't even clear it out to add more stuff on.

I had to restore first to clear the space and then re-sync to get everything on.
 
I just did a restore yesterday. I have just under half a gigabyte. Now some of this could be documents on mine. I think a restore is a great idea.
 

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pooryou said:
Apps use storage, for example if you use Zinio it stores magazines. If you use Goodreader it stores PDFs and other documents. If you use ComicZeal it stores comic book files. Etc etc etc etc. This is what "Other" is, and it can add up.
Click to expand...

False, all these files would be stored in the "App" section
edit, Seajay beat me to it :)

jav is right, it's just extra OS stuff that probably could have been figured out with MRoogle
 
seajay96 said:
This is NOT true. Goodreader and Zinio files show up under "Apps" I have a little over 16Gb in Goodreader and about 50 magazine files in Zinio, but my "Other" is only .8 Gb
Click to expand...

Not that way on my iPad. Of course I am still on 3.2.1.
 
I have also wandered about this 'other data' storing gigabytes of nothing.

But, I do want to tell you what just happened on my iPad today. I noticed for a few days now that the Twitter app (official one) was not opening to the last timeline. So in total frustration, I deleted the Twitter app on my iPad so that I could re-install it to see if that would fix my issue. HOWEVER, after I deleted Twitter app, I plugged in my iPad and iTunes came up automatically for a sync like it always does, but when I clicked on my iPad in iTunes, I was AMAZED to see that all the other data which was 3.2gb just VANISHED by dropping to 0.38gb! All I did was uninstall the official Twitter app on the iPad. Anyway, I re-installed the Twitter app to see if my initial issue will be resolved, but if my other data starts climbing back up, I'm going to remove the Twitter app again to see if it removes most of that other data.
 
ngenerator said:
Weird, I'm on 3.2.2 and those files show up in my app section. To test, I've deleted them and re-added them and my app section decreased and increased, not my other
Click to expand...

Hm weird. I had many many GB of PDFs in Goodreader. Deleted a bunch of them and the 'Other' went down considerably. Maybe it was a coincidence, who knows?
 
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