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"Other" taking up 17GB of space and keeps growing

I've deleted and reinstalled almost all of the apps and the "Other" only seems to be growing bigger, not smaller. Also I deleted all my messages and it went from 12Mb to 14Mb. I don't know what's wrong with my iphone 8, any solutions? Thank you.

Posted on Jun 18, 2020 1:51 PM

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9 replies

Jun 18, 2020 1:59 PM in response to yenj69

“Other” is all storage not otherwise included in the colored categories. It may, for example, include miscellaneous files no longer in use, caches, previously streamed videos and music, etc. And occasionally a corrupted file that can't be deleted. The easiest way of clearing Other is to Restart your device.

Restart instructions: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201559


About storage on your device and in iCloud: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT206504

Jun 18, 2020 4:38 PM in response to yenj69

If a restart didn't help, the next step would be a restore. That's much more likely to delete a corrupted file, if that's what's causing this? Not that 17 GB is unusually large, though...

Restore instructions: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204184


It only takes one image attachment for messages to grow by 2 MB. I don't think that's significant.


How to free up storage on iOS devices:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203097 

Jun 19, 2020 2:27 PM in response to yenj69

Do you have PC or Mac? It's important because on Mac Time Machine snapshots are not counted in free space calculation, but they are counted when system scans space for the backup (not really smart, I know...).


If PC, you mean you have 900GB free on C:\ drive? As iTunes will back up only to C:\. If not and you need to change backup location, you'll need to tinker with symlinks or get smth like iMazing that has an option to change backup location.


Also, what's the full disk size on your phone?

"Other" taking up 17GB of space and keeps growing

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