I noticed this post on Reddit and thought people here might benefit from it.
Full credit to JonLuca.
Here is a recap of all the ways to free up other space
By deleting message backups. (6.1.1 and older only)
By using the free application PhoneClean.
By using and running iCleaner.
The SECOND messages bug, which is still around on 6.1.2.
Download and use RespringCacheFix on rpetri's repo.
If you are willing to spend some time resyncing everything, you can delete your music and then resync it all by going to Settings -> General -> Usage -> Music and deleting it all.
**Delete your email accounts and then re-add them. It clears all of the downloaded attachments and messages**
Delete your browser cache (history, cookies, and data) in Safari or Chrome. Settings - Safari - Clear History + Data and in-app for chrome.
Go to /var/mobile/Library/Caches/imageCache and delete it.
**Go to /var/mobile/Media/ApplicationArchives and delete everything in there - it's all the partially downloaded apps**
Clearing your iFile Trash.
Your album artwork file is huge. I have about 2000 songs and my artwork is at 250mb (See screenshot.)
There are multiple album artworks saved for each song. The only way seen to fix this is to unsync ALL your music then resync it.
Check your Downloads folder. If you use iTransmission to download torrents, those are huge and will be in your Other section. There are multiple Downloads folders, so make sure to do a hierarchical search in /var/mobile for Downloads.
If you want to find large files on your iPhone via SSH or in MobileTerminal, you can type the command:
**"find . -size +100M -print"**
This will list all files larger than 100mb in the current directory you are in. It will also search any subdirectories. I got that hint from here.
If you would like a more extensive way of doing this, you can print all files on your device from largest to smallest using this method.
What you do, is run the command
find / -iname * -ls | sort -rn -k 7.1 | gawk {print $7,$11} > files.txt
And it will print all the files in descending size order to a file named "files.txt" in your current directory. You must have Gawk installed for thsi to work.
**If you have lots of themes installed from Cydia, remove those. I know a lot of the COMPLETE themes can be 80 - 100 mb in size, and if you have 5 of those it will use up all your space. Remove any unused themes**
Go to /var/mobile/Library/Application Support/Containers/eu.heinelt.ifile/Documents/Inbox and check if there is anything you need in there. Delete it.
In that whole Application Support and Containers folder there is some useless junk.
**If you have ever used GrooveShark, navigate to /var/mobile/Library/GrooveShark. HOLY COW. Every song and album artwork you have ever downloaded using the app is right there! I just found this. Freed up a ton of space.**
**Go to /var/mobile/ and do a hierarchical search for Caches. You can delete any folder that comes up - it's just a cache
** **Be wary about this though, I don't know 100% of the tweaks that use a Cache folder. Some poorly written tweaks might use it to keep their preferences.**
Go to /var/mobile/Library/DreamBoard. If you uninstall DreamBoard, it sometimes won't remove this folder. If you installed many themes, this folder will be HUGE.
**Go to /Library (NOT /var/mobile/library, actually just /Library/) and delete the Caches folder, and any folder from a tweak you know you uninstalled. Sometimes tweaks forget to delete their folders
**
Some people have had success by going to Settings -> General -> Usage -> Music and then swiping on Music and pressing delete, and then IMMEDIATELY rebooting the phone. I just tried it and it kept all my music but freed up 700 mb of my other section. This isn't guaranteed to work, though, and might actually delete all your music so **do it at your own risk.**
**Needless to say, incase you haven't done it already, pictures taken with the iPhone 4 and newer are enormous - 4 to 5 mb each. If you have 70 pictures in your Camera Roll that can be up to 400mb just in pictures! 5 minutes of hd video will take up a good 200mb. This hint is kind of simple, but sometimes you just forget what you have on there
**
And now the newest one! I got the information from iFans.
If you have total backup or open backup, their respective backups will be huge. 500 mb huge.
To clean them, you can just delete /var/mobile/Library/Preferences/OpenBackup
and
/var/mobile/Documents/TotalBackup
**In addition to these, if you aren't using iCleaner for whatever reason, the Facebook and Alien Blue apps both use HUGE caches. iCleaner will clean these up for you, but just in case you might want to delete them. I know for a fact that FB saves EVERY image you have ever seen in the app in it's caches folder.**
And, finally, if you have tried ALL of these and none of them work, you can do a "soft" restore, and use iLEX RAT to remove everything but keep your jailbreak.
Also, one last thing. A lot of tweaks that are installed through Cydia are very messy - they leave a LOT of things behind if you uninstall them. An example of this is iRealSMS. It does a terrible job cleaning up after itself if it uninstalled. All it's Drafts and sms backups are left there. If you use some common sense, you can go through your /var/mobile/ folders and just delete the ones from the tweaks you KNOW you uninstalled.
However, be very cautious with this. Don't go around deleting things willy nilly. Only do this if you know what you're doing.
As a final note, sometimes there's just nothing you can do. That other section will just stay there because, well, you have lots of other. You installed lots of themes, or a sync went bad or a download got cut short and there is no way you can find to fix it. In that case, if iLex RAT doesn't work, you will have to do a hard restore.
Full credit to JonLuca.
Here is a recap of all the ways to free up other space
By deleting message backups. (6.1.1 and older only)
By using the free application PhoneClean.
By using and running iCleaner.
The SECOND messages bug, which is still around on 6.1.2.
Download and use RespringCacheFix on rpetri's repo.
If you are willing to spend some time resyncing everything, you can delete your music and then resync it all by going to Settings -> General -> Usage -> Music and deleting it all.
**Delete your email accounts and then re-add them. It clears all of the downloaded attachments and messages**
Delete your browser cache (history, cookies, and data) in Safari or Chrome. Settings - Safari - Clear History + Data and in-app for chrome.
Go to /var/mobile/Library/Caches/imageCache and delete it.
**Go to /var/mobile/Media/ApplicationArchives and delete everything in there - it's all the partially downloaded apps**
Clearing your iFile Trash.
Your album artwork file is huge. I have about 2000 songs and my artwork is at 250mb (See screenshot.)
There are multiple album artworks saved for each song. The only way seen to fix this is to unsync ALL your music then resync it.
Check your Downloads folder. If you use iTransmission to download torrents, those are huge and will be in your Other section. There are multiple Downloads folders, so make sure to do a hierarchical search in /var/mobile for Downloads.
If you want to find large files on your iPhone via SSH or in MobileTerminal, you can type the command:
**"find . -size +100M -print"**
This will list all files larger than 100mb in the current directory you are in. It will also search any subdirectories. I got that hint from here.
If you would like a more extensive way of doing this, you can print all files on your device from largest to smallest using this method.
What you do, is run the command
find / -iname * -ls | sort -rn -k 7.1 | gawk {print $7,$11} > files.txt
And it will print all the files in descending size order to a file named "files.txt" in your current directory. You must have Gawk installed for thsi to work.
**If you have lots of themes installed from Cydia, remove those. I know a lot of the COMPLETE themes can be 80 - 100 mb in size, and if you have 5 of those it will use up all your space. Remove any unused themes**
Go to /var/mobile/Library/Application Support/Containers/eu.heinelt.ifile/Documents/Inbox and check if there is anything you need in there. Delete it.
In that whole Application Support and Containers folder there is some useless junk.
**If you have ever used GrooveShark, navigate to /var/mobile/Library/GrooveShark. HOLY COW. Every song and album artwork you have ever downloaded using the app is right there! I just found this. Freed up a ton of space.**
**Go to /var/mobile/ and do a hierarchical search for Caches. You can delete any folder that comes up - it's just a cache
Go to /var/mobile/Library/DreamBoard. If you uninstall DreamBoard, it sometimes won't remove this folder. If you installed many themes, this folder will be HUGE.
**Go to /Library (NOT /var/mobile/library, actually just /Library/) and delete the Caches folder, and any folder from a tweak you know you uninstalled. Sometimes tweaks forget to delete their folders
Some people have had success by going to Settings -> General -> Usage -> Music and then swiping on Music and pressing delete, and then IMMEDIATELY rebooting the phone. I just tried it and it kept all my music but freed up 700 mb of my other section. This isn't guaranteed to work, though, and might actually delete all your music so **do it at your own risk.**
**Needless to say, incase you haven't done it already, pictures taken with the iPhone 4 and newer are enormous - 4 to 5 mb each. If you have 70 pictures in your Camera Roll that can be up to 400mb just in pictures! 5 minutes of hd video will take up a good 200mb. This hint is kind of simple, but sometimes you just forget what you have on there
And now the newest one! I got the information from iFans.
If you have total backup or open backup, their respective backups will be huge. 500 mb huge.
To clean them, you can just delete /var/mobile/Library/Preferences/OpenBackup
and
/var/mobile/Documents/TotalBackup
**In addition to these, if you aren't using iCleaner for whatever reason, the Facebook and Alien Blue apps both use HUGE caches. iCleaner will clean these up for you, but just in case you might want to delete them. I know for a fact that FB saves EVERY image you have ever seen in the app in it's caches folder.**
And, finally, if you have tried ALL of these and none of them work, you can do a "soft" restore, and use iLEX RAT to remove everything but keep your jailbreak.
Also, one last thing. A lot of tweaks that are installed through Cydia are very messy - they leave a LOT of things behind if you uninstall them. An example of this is iRealSMS. It does a terrible job cleaning up after itself if it uninstalled. All it's Drafts and sms backups are left there. If you use some common sense, you can go through your /var/mobile/ folders and just delete the ones from the tweaks you KNOW you uninstalled.
However, be very cautious with this. Don't go around deleting things willy nilly. Only do this if you know what you're doing.
As a final note, sometimes there's just nothing you can do. That other section will just stay there because, well, you have lots of other. You installed lots of themes, or a sync went bad or a download got cut short and there is no way you can find to fix it. In that case, if iLex RAT doesn't work, you will have to do a hard restore.