iPhone "Other" is WAY over capacity (5.6GB)

K

KingMo

macrumors member
Can someone please help me solve this problem. My iPhone has been incredibly over capacity in the "other" storage compartment. It is 5.6GB... larger than any other on my iPhone.

I've tried everything to get this to go down, but it just keeps rising. Is there any way to drastically decrease this?

I've provided a screenshot below:
Screen Shot 2012-08-30 at 11.22.39 AM.png
 
I too would like some information on the best way to get the OTHERS cleared.
I have around 1.5 GB other in my iPhone 4.
I have read previously that a restore does remove this but say i do a backup and then restore using the backup, wont that get the OTHERS back to where it was , which essentially defeats the purpose of restore to get the OTHERS cleared ?
Any suggestions will be appreciated.
 
How willing are you to do a full reset? It's likely that your "Other" is mostly stranded files, and I (while nowhere near an expert) think the best way to reclaim this is to reset and then reload (clean install) your apps and data.

Regards,
Tom
 
Perhaps I am stating the obvious, but there might be files associated with various apps. You can determine this by looking at the apps tab when you connect to iTunes by scrolling toward the bottom to the 'Documents' section. I look at this occasionally and I am sometime surprised by what I find.
 
It's an ongoing problem with iOS and I have no clue why Apple doesn't do something about it. I've had to redo my phone and iPad more times than I care to recount. It's particularly annoying on the iPad since 16GB's isn't much room on it to start with, next go round will certainly be a 32GB.
 
There's a desktop app called "phone clean". Cnet did a write up about it yesterday. It sounds like that would be perfect for your situation
 
I never had this problem. I have a iPhone 4 32gb and have filled it to 69gb so far, have yet to get a 'storage full' message!
 
I'd have to agree with the above poster who suggested that the excess space is being used by a specific app or apps. I noticed the same in the past and realized that all the comics I had in my "Comic Zeal" app was the culprit. Could it be books, perhaps? Think along the lines of what you do most with your tablet--apps associated with whatever THAT is might be the culprit. Good luck.
 
I tried to delete my imessages, "favorite" stuff in some app to remove some of the "others". I once looked at the FB app, and it had like over 500mb of whatever :eek: what I did was just delete the FB app, and redownload it.

I think Apple should not allow third party app store documents that we dont know about in their own app in our iphone. Or something that will at least tell us what is stored! Privacy anyone?
 
aziatiklover said:
Or something that will at least tell us what is stored!
Click to expand...
They already do this.

It's easy to find out which apps are eating up the most space.

Settings > General > Usage > Storage

The results will be displayed ranked by size.

Click on a specific app and it will show you what the actual app size is and how much in Documents & Data.

For example, I have the 3D Cities app (215MB): the app size is 15.7MB and it has 199 MB of Documents & Data (I downloaded the map of San Francisco). I also have the 280MB Star Walk app: the app size is 280MB and the Documents & Data is a mere 88KB.
 
cvaldes said:
They already do this.

It's easy to find out which apps are eating up the most space.

Settings > General > Usage > Storage

The results will be displayed ranked by size.

Click on a specific app and it will show you what the actual app size is and how much in Documents & Data.

For example, I have the 3D Cities app (215MB): the app size is 15.7MB and it has 199 MB of Documents & Data (I downloaded the map of San Francisco). I also have the 280MB Star Walk app: the app size is 280MB and the Documents & Data is a mere 88KB.
Click to expand...

Yes I know this! But somehow, I still have unknown others! This method does not show u for example how much your imessages has been stored.

My wife 4S had like over 1GB of imessages! I figure that out by deleting all her messages and see if it would go down which it did.
 
Same issue

Yesterday I only had a couple GB of "Other." Then I upgraded to Mountain Lion and now it is trying to sync 27GB of "Other" (which would put me over 10GB over capacity). I have checked everything mentioned on this thread, and nothing is helping. Would like to avoid a Restore, but may have to try that soon.

Update: I restarted iTunes, and everything's back to normal. Yay! Sorry for wasting y'all's time.
 
Last edited:
Delete Voicemail + Text that contain video & Pics

Free up your "other" capacity. That used to be my exact problem. I took my iPhone up to the Apple store and nobody could ever figure it out. I found by deleting the text messages that were heavy with photos and videos...that cleared up the other. I also deleted old voice messages and that freed more space up! So, try that!! :)
 
Love2snap said:
Free up your "other" capacity. That used to be my exact problem. I took my iPhone up to the Apple store and nobody could ever figure it out. I found by deleting the text messages that were heavy with photos and videos...that cleared up the other. I also deleted old voice messages and that freed more space up! So, try that!! :)
Click to expand...

You do see this is more than a year old thread :rolleyes:
 
AnorexicPig said:
You do see this is more than a year old thread :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

You realize this thread isn't being written as a little story for you, don't you? It's a repository of information for people looking to solve a problem. I'd much rather have someone contribute to an existing thread than to open up new one on the exact same topic.

I just found this thread today via Google; the prior poster's comment was useful -- unlike yours. :rolleyes:
 
I agree with others here, the only way to fully clear is a full reset. Some things like in app data and text messages can bloat it, but also corrupted syncs or files and balloon it. I've restored a few times over the years for the dreaded "other."
 
I actually just did this last month, but restored from last sync. It worked from 3.something GB to now 1.77 GB. :D
 
Sometimes removing and resyncing music may help. I get a lot of other data when my music sync corrupts, which requires a restore depending how severe it is.
 
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