Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Facebook and it's Documents & Data Usage

TL24

TL24

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Oct 20, 2011
1,458
1,361
So I took a look at what Facebook is currently using on my iPhone 4S and it shows 414MB! WTF?!

What the hell is Facebook doing using 414MB of my 32GB? Is there anyway to delete this data? Back in my Android days we could clear it's cache & data but I can't seem to find anything that relates to this on my iPhone 4S.

Any suggestions?
 
Most likely caching photos.

Weird, my FB only using 49MB, and I browse photos alot *shrug*.
 
What's stupid is this data isn't temporary storage like most apps use and instead gets backed up with everything else. For a while my Facebook data was half of what was being backed up on iCloud, and I have to periodically delete the app and backup in order to get things in check again.
 
Small White Car said:
Where, exactly, are you seeing this?
Click to expand...

Go into Settings -> General -> Usage -> Facebook : and you'll see the amount of crap Facebook has been gathering :mad:

There has to be a workaround besides removing and re-installing the app? :confused:
 
Why even back it up to begin with? If it is 1mb or 400+mb

If you have to restore your phone, redownload the app and log in and you lost nothing.

It has to be all cache. Do you upload or look at a lot of photos?
 
edk99 said:
Why even back it up to begin with? If it is 1mb or 400+mb

If you have to restore your phone, redownload the app and log in and you lost nothing.

It has to be all cache. Do you upload or look at a lot of photos?
Click to expand...

Not at all, I don't sit there browsing everyone's albums. I'd look at some pictures here and there, leave comments, look at the news feed but that's about it.

Strange really, I just uninstalled and reinstalled the app to get rid of the 400+ MB
 
I just saw this my 4S. Facebook has 553MB. WTH? My first guess was Cached photos but like a previous poster mentioned, I dont sit there and browse every photo/album.

Anyone else have another theory?
 
I don't have anything constructive to add to this post other than a point of clarification that will help anyone who wanders in here:

You're referring to the Facebook app's local storage usage on the phone, not Documents & Data usage, which is unique to iCloud, and of which, the Facebook app appears to use none.

Again, he's referring to local storage, not Documents & Data usage.
 
I don't use the Facebook app much, but I took a look and it was using 11MB. I looked at it with PhoneView, and it looks like it has several HTML5 local storage databases being used by WebView within the app. My phone had two for the m.facebook.com domain, one for http and one for https. It looks like it caches all the posts you look at in the app.

These files are stored in Library/Webview, so they'd be backed up all the time. I'd count that as a bug, but I'm not sure offhand how to fix it.

For example, here's one of the rows I have in my database.


Code: 
{"time":1321899262490,"value":"<a class=\"miniUfiWrap touchable\" id=\"mini_ufi_10150973155485497\" href=\"fb://faceweb/f?href=%2Fstory.php%3Fstory_fbid%3D10150973155485497%26id%3D734005496%26post_id%3D734005496_10150973155485497%26fwcl%3D1%26fwcc%3D1%26fwl%26refid%3D17\" data-meta=\"2_33\" data-sigil=\"touchable ufi-toggle\"><div class=\"miniUfiNub\"><i class=\"img\" style=\"background-image: url("https://s-static.ak.facebook.com/rsrc.php/v1/yz/r/ShK50HIalWH.png");background-repeat:no-repeat;background-size:100% 100%;width:11px;height:14px;\"></i></div><span class=\"miniUfi mfss fcl\"><span class=\"like_def\"><i class=\"img\" style=\"background-image: url("https://s-static.ak.facebook.com/rsrc.php/v1/ys/r/anRaP7l7g6d.png");background-repeat:no-repeat;background-size:100% 100%;width:13px;height:15px;\"></i>6 people</span><span class=\"like_opt\"><i class=\"img\" style=\"background-image: url("https://s-static.ak.facebook.com/rsrc.php/v1/ys/r/anRaP7l7g6d.png");background-repeat:no-repeat;background-size:100% 100%;width:13px;height:15px;\"></i>7 people</span><span class=\"cmt_def\"><i class=\"img\" style=\"background-image: url("https://s-static.ak.facebook.com/rsrc.php/v1/y-/r/m0rbkoSTgw-.png");background-repeat:no-repeat;background-size:100% 100%;width:12px;height:16px;\"></i>2 comments</span><span class=\"cmt_opt\"><i class=\"img\" style=\"background-image: url("https://s-static.ak.facebook.com/rsrc.php/v1/y-/r/m0rbkoSTgw-.png");background-repeat:no-repeat;background-size:100% 100%;width:12px;height:16px;\"></i>3 comments</span></span></a>"}
 
Yeah my Facebook size is 296MB.
No wonder that it's been running slow and simply, like crap. I wonder if reinstalling it will improve performance.
 
We'll mine is at 225mb showing in the usage section. Not only that but I had a wallpaper app from the app store to browse wallpapers and save to the camera role for the home screen. It had 989mb data, nearly a gb space taken up off the phone. I had 1.6gb free now I have 2.6 gb free :eek:

What is it storing on the phone to take up that much space?
 
After going thru each of my apps and comparing the total size of each app (App size + Docs/Data) it appears Facebook is definitely the biggest offender. I deleted/reinstalled and now I'm back down to 12mb.

Another thing I'm noticing is my Other (Yellow) data is 2.5 gbs. I'm not quite sure where this is coming from but after a few searches it's still not too clear to me. I cleared my Sarari history/cache but I'm still at 2.3gbs. Started deleting email inbox/sent/deleted items. Cleared a ton of old text messages.

Haven t had a chance to reconnect to iTunes so hopefully that helps.
 
If you go to

Usage > Manage Storage > Click on your backup

You will probably find out its not backing up all thats stored on the phone...my facebook shows 287mb on the phone, but only 21.4mb on the backup and from the backup page you can stop facebook or whatever app you want from being saved in the backup.
 
533MB here.

damn. wtf! With that much usage I'd like to actually have the app work!
 
tjb1 said:
If you go to

Usage > Manage Storage > Click on your backup

You will probably find out its not backing up all thats stored on the phone...my facebook shows 287mb on the phone, but only 21.4mb on the backup and from the backup page you can stop facebook or whatever app you want from being saved in the backup.
Click to expand...

I did notice that however I'm still curious to know why or what the 500mb+ consists of. Also, is the data included in my overal total of Apps or Other data usage. (I'm referring to the phone summary when connected to iTunes)
 
Seems a little much to have to keep deleting the app and re-installing it. I just checked... 4.5 gig being allocated there folks on my iPhone 5. That's nonsense.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Misha33
And this is one place where Android is ahead of the iPhone. Apple needs to make a "Clear Cache" or similar button. I find myself periodically deleting Facebook, CNN, Twitter, and a few other apps to get some free space back
 
Apple automatically clears caches if they are put in the right place. Facebook put it under library where it won't be touched. Facebook bug.
 
If you delete the app and redownload it, you're going to end up downloading a lot of pictures multiple times, and it will eat into your data plan.

On my phone, Garage band takes a whopping 1.2 GB and i have yet to use it once.
 
Pinterest and most other apps have an option to delete this data. FB has neither a cap on this nor an option to delete this wasteful cached data.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back