How do I reclaim iPhone storage space taken up by 'Other'?

How do I reclaim iPhone storage space taken up by 'Other'?

We've been getting numerous reports of users, who have attempted to sync their iPhones after the latest iTunes updates (7.4.x), finding that iTunes shows space on their iPhone occupied by something specified only as 'Other'. Often, this space may be only small amounts (a few megabytes), but we have received reports of 'Other' taking up as much as 4 gigabytes.

Unfortunately, scouring available information sources and speaking with Apple hasn't led to any type of easy resolution.

If you're experiencing this issue under any version of iTunes, you'll need to restore your iPhone to reclaim the space occupied by Other. That is the only known solution at this time.

If you've found another solution to the 'Other' issue, please let us know.

Presumably this issue will be rectified by the next iTunes update.

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UPDATE: User Andrew S. said he deleted "a substantial number of text threads containing pictures and videos" to clean out half of the "Other" storage on his phone. Andrew claims he went from having zero free space to 1.88GB by using this technique.

tags: 
Storage
iTunes
Troubleshooting
Syncing
Storage
iTunes
Troubleshooting
Syncing

Comments

Anonymous replied on

Can you be more specific?
What files did you delete? Where are they located?
There's no such thing as "/var/mobile..." in my iPhone when I looked with iPhone Explorer... O_o

Anonymous replied on

Erm, change that four gigs to nine, cause thats what i've got :[ It deleted all my music, and left me with 9 gigs of Other, so now im restoring it and it "appears" to be working..

Anonymous replied on

Beside all said above check:

/var/mobile/Library/SafeHarbor
This folder contains all the documents and preferences. Check these folders. Some of them can contain large files.

Anonymous replied on

Be more specific! we are not all computer geniuses...........where the f#ck do i find that file? on the computer? on the iphone? do i need a program to open it?????????????

MG replied on

This worked for me, for some reason all of my video files had been saved by vlc even though they weren't set to sync.

Thanks!

Anonymous replied on

Yup
This worked for me. SafeHarbor contained folders for Apps I have used a long time ago. One of the Apps was a video player and all the videos I watched were stored in that folder.Guess what, the size of the folder was 3 GB.

Anonymous replied on

i downloaded an app on cydia called ifile and i went through folders like downloads and cache etc... and i deleted everything on the files and it freed up the "other" catagorie and went down 4 gb!!

Bri replied on

All my music was wiped, RANDOMLY, I hadn't connected to my computer or done anything to it and all of a sudden I have 8GB of Other stored on my phone. Restoring now. This is annoying.

Anonymous replied on

same happened to me 7.14 gb of "Other" -_- and my music was just gone

Anonymous replied on

I have downloaded http://www.macroplant.com/iphoneexplorer/ and browsing I found lots of Thumbs under the pictures previews. My phone is never jailbreak-en, factory unlocked, runs iOS 40.1
Managed to recover all the 2.6 Gb, no "Other" files anymore
Took me 2 minutes

Anonymous replied on

Please help:i got a big black gap in between the pictures in my photo album ..how can i get rid of it..thx..

Anonymous replied on

from what I've seen here and other forums it seems what is classified by iTunes as 'Other' can vary depending on how you use your phone. For instance I don't have a whole bunch of music or sync my phone with Outlook so those solutions didn't really work for me, but I think I have isolated a possible cause. Since I first started having this problem I've restored my phone to factory settings 3 times. The last time I did it and started syncing it in iTunes I noticed an immediate increase in the 'Other' space. This truly infuriated me because this was minutes after I had just restored it to where the 'other' was only 0.25GB, what could possibly be making it increase so rapidly already??? Then it hit me, iOS multitasking! Could that 'Other' be the info from whatever running applications were open in the background when the phone synced? I've experimented for a couple of days now syncing my 3rd generation iTouch and iPhone 3GS several times, always making sure I closed out all apps before syncing, and have not seen any increase in the 'Other' size. Might not apply to all situations, but I'm so geeked that this worked for me thought I would post it.

GhettoShowgun replied on

If you have a jailbroken device the "other" space is occupied by the unfinished (ipa) apps that you download from installous and maybe even the finished ipas. I had two apps each over 1gb that i downloaded from installous but never finished downloading (The Elements and something else). I used IFile to go into: /private/var/mobile/Documents/Installous/Downloads and deleted the files that were listed but not actual apps on my device. Went from 5gb of other space to 1.8.

Anonymous replied on

hi i goin installous then go to downloads and get rid of any ipas you have there.
this wont get rid of the app just the part that installed it for you.
i had 7g on other till i did this. now got less than 1g in other.

fattyz replied on

this is it, i tried everything else. On 4.3.1. getting rid of all the folders in itunes control music worked, this time it was the partially downloaded installous files. THANK YOU

FattyZ

harsha replied on

So before doing a restore as a last resort, you can check for duplicate files using the free app for Mac and Windows called Disk Aid.

Just follow this steps:

1. Connect your iPhone to your computer.
2. Open Disk Aid.
3. Click on iTunes_Control -> Music -> Fxx (F00, F01, etc.). Look for duplicate mp4 files. If you’re not sure, you can copy the files to your computer by clicking on the icon Copy to Mac or PC and view them first.
4. Delete duplicate mp4 files or delete them all and re-sync later.
5. Do the same in iTunes_Control_2.

Read more: How to Reduce the Size of Your iPhone’s http://menoob.com/iphone/how-to-reduce-the-size-of-your-iphones-other-files/#ixzz18eoNJLUO

Jeff replied on

I have been trying to solve the mystery of the "Other" space which keeps expanding on my iPhone 4. I restored my iPhone several times, each time reducing my "Other" space back down to ~.35 GB. Within a week, however, my "Other" space would balloon back to > 1 GB. Very frustrating.

Eventually, I came across the following steps to resolve this issue at http://www.ipodrepublic.com/iphone/fixing-issue-other-files-iphone-memory/2010/03/31/

I followed them to the letter, and it worked flawlessly. Not only did I reduce the "Other" space, I eliminated it completely. I have since synced my iPhone 4 five times over the past three days, and still no sign of any "Other" space! None. Zip. Zilch. Not even a hint of the yellow color that had previously been driving me crazy. Anyway, thanks to the author of the steps found at the link above, which I've pasted below.

Step 1: Turn of sync music in iTunes

When you have synced your iPhone and noticed that “other files” have taken up a lot of storage space on the iPhone, un-tick the “sync music” alternative in iTunes before un-connecting your iPhone.

Step 2: Install DiskAid software on computer/mac

DiskAid is a neat little software that allows you transfer files to your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad, treating it as a USB drive. They offer a free trial of the software so no need to purchase it first time you have to use it at least.

Make sure your iPhone is connected with the USB when you open up DiskAid. When the program is running, at the bottom left corner it says “DiskAid folder”, click on the drop down list and choose “media folders”.

Step 3: Go into iTunes Control folder and then the Music folder

In DiskAid you will see an overview of all the folders and files on your iPhone. Go to the iTunes Control Folder and then the subfolder called Music. Under the Music folder you will likely see a lot of subfolders starting with “f”.

Step 4: Delete/remove all subfolders in Music

Delete all the subfolders under the Music folder. They include the files that are hogging your iPhone memory under “other files”.

Step 5: Open iTunes and sync your iPhone

With “music sync” still turned off in iTunes, sync your iPhone. This will remove all music files from your iPhone, but keep all other content. Don’t worry about this though, as in the next steps you will sync the music back onto your iPhone.

Step 6: Unplug iPhone and reboot it

Once the iPhone has finished syncing, unplug it and perform a reboot. The reboot is done by holding down the “power down” button at the top right at the same times as holding down the control button. Hold both of them until the iPhone has switched off and the Apple logo appears on the screen before releasing both buttons. This action will reboot your iPhone.

Step 7: Reconnect your iPhone to iTunes and recheck “sync music”

This will put your music back onto the iPhone, and you should not see any of the “other files” taking up any of the iPhone memory. Once the sync is complete your iPhone should be all sorted again.

If you still see “other files” taking up memory on your iPhone you have likely done something wrong or left out subfolders in step 4.

Hope this helps others having this problem.

Jeff Hervel replied on

Dear Jeff,

Just a quick note to say thank you for the above solution. "Other" has been driving me nuts for weeks and the people at Apple don't seem too bothered to do much about it. Instead of using Diskscan i used Iphone Explorer which was just as easy, deleting the "F" files is the key.

Anyway, thanks and happy new year!!

Jeff

Anonymous replied on

Thank you for the step by step. This worked like a charm!

Paolo replied on

thank you sir! it works! thank you so much

Jon replied on

Tried this twice to no avail, the "other" space remains.

Any other thoughts as to what could be in there? Would this also be space that would be used by apps such as usb disk, voice recorder (not the apple default one) and other apps which generate or store data?

Paige replied on

I can't find the "DiskAid Folder" in the bottom left hand corner. Has it been updated and moved? Thanks!

Kuromi replied on

harsha thank you so much for this tip! It didn't erase a lot of the "other" space on my iPod touch 4g, it went from 1.09 gb of "other" space right down to 0.97 gb of "other" space! Any tips on what else I could do besides this? Already deleted my safari history, nothing happened, did a couple other tips but didn't help!

Anonymous replied on

if you use installous to download app or games, the "other" is most likely to be the apps in the "downloads" section of the installous app itself. So you should delete those apps in the installous "downloads" section after u've install the app or games. it should clear the "other" :)

Erick replied on

Didnt work for me!
I searched my files using Diskaid and cannot find any files large enough to reflect the 4gigs in the “other”. Any advice?

John V. Keogh replied on

I found hundreds of tiny files in Apps/Hipstamatic/Documents/FilmRoll/

Looks like a bug whereby Hipstamatic never deletes these preview images.

ceejh replied on

hi i'm cj from Philippines. .. .. i'm kinda tired reading all comments and step by step solutions regarding the "other" thing on my iphone3g... coz i almost tried all the methods on every thread that i visit but none of them help me get rid of that f*** "other" that ate almost all of my phone's memory... but i've tried experimenting, first, finding which file or folder uses alot of memory using DISKAID... On the process, i noticed that the folder that i found in "Media folder/Downloads" uses 3.4gig of memory...and i was shocked when i found that inside the Download folder is the folder full of pictures copied from my pc (which i sync using itunes)... i wonder why it is inside the Download folder, well obviously i didn't download them, those are my pix... so i tried to open itunes and unsync that folder, but after syncing and try to open it again using diskaid, it is still there... so i tried to delete that same folder using diskaid but i got no luck, coz theres an error says "permission denied".... so i've tried other software (iphone explorer) and woooOALA, i deleted that folder right away... and upon opening my iphone on itunes, "others" was down to .80gig.... .. .. from 4.7gig to 0.80gig.. a big difference...so heres the process folks:

1. download iphone explorer here. (http://www.macroplant.com/iphoneexplorer/)
2. plug in your iphone and open iphone explorer.
3. open var/mobile/Downloads.
4. delete the file inside the download folder. (or copy them if you're not sure)
5. sync it to itunes (unchecking sync music and sync photos) - - - - not sure if it's necessary...
6. reboot your device (iphone) and open it on itunes, you should see

it works for me (i don't know why).. . .. so if you're tired of doing the same process.. .. atleast you can try this..
i hope it works to you aswell... MABUHAY!!!

iLaria_66 replied on

The problem is caused from interrupting iTunes syncs.

Its really easy to fix....
1) Sync your iPhone and make sure you have a good backup.
2) Download and install DiskAid form http://www.digidna.net/products/diskaid
3) In the Explorer window DiskAid navigate to iTunes_Control/Music and delete all of the files (this will temporarily disable your ability to play music).
4) Start iTunes, Right Click your iPhone in navigation window, and select Restore From Backup...
5) Let it do its restore and... YOUR DONE!

TIPS... While syncing, turn on airplane mode to avoid calls, and do not interrupt sinks in future.

Hector83 replied on

Dudes!

I saw a comment here recommending the soft DiskAid... People, google it, and download, install an run...
A lot of people having the problem with the ''other'' eating 5gigs of memory on their Iphones said they tackle the problem ereasing pics... but then they said there were still like 2 more gigs they dont know where are coming from...
Well, I just got the answer... In DiskAid, go to: MediaFolder>.trashes>501
Dudes, erease all you have inside that carpet, and you are done!
In my case, it werent pics, but videos that I had moved from my Iphone to another pc. The curious thing is that I moved them, but for some reason, Itunes kept all the vids, with all the atributes and size on this carpet. i just copy all the videos to my pc (just in case... just being smart) and then deleted all those vids... and guess what?..... . .. . . . . . . . BOOM! 5 gigs back from ''OTHER''!!!!

Thanks to everyone here, the comments really helped me. And in the same way, I hope I help some others in need.

Take care, and keep ''Iphoning''!!! :P

TH replied on

Hector83 ... i got all the way to the part about looking for mediafolder, trashes, 501. Well i have a iphone 3Gs NOT jailbroken, and there is no trashes folder. Do a click by click walkthru if you think i am missing something. In the meantime i will follow Jeff instructions (dec. 23rd 2010). I know he has the iphone 4, but i am hoping the instructions work with the 3Gs also. Anyone with success OR failure please report here! AND BE DETAILED DETAILED DETAILED!!!!!! Thanks.

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