For most iPhone users, “Other” storage is not familiar. However, it is one of the major causes why your iPhone is in shortage of storage. Don't worry, this article will introduce methods to clear them.
Q1: What is “Other” storage on my iPhone?
Lots of people even don’t understand what “Other” is. Simply put, “Other” storage simply includes everything that doesn’t fit into pre-existing categories. This includes browser cache, cached email messages & attachments, iTunes backups, notes, voice memos, call history, etc.
If your MacBook Pro is running out of storage, and you’re not willing to buy an external or internal hard drive for now, here’s how you can free up some of disk’s space using the macOS High Sierra’s built-in storage management tool: Get to the About This Mac box Click the Apple logo from the menu bar, and click About This Mac. Jan 27, 2021 In a nutshell, the 'Other' storage on a Mac consists of different types of files that don't fall into any particular storage category (like videos, photos, music, apps, or mail). The ‘Other’ category also includes junk files and personal files. Find out how much storage is available on your Mac Choose Apple menu About This Mac, then click Storage. Each segment of the bar is an estimate of the storage space used by a category of files. Move your pointer over each segment for more detail. What is Other on Mac Storage? Just like the ‘Other’ on iPhone and iPad, it is home to several files, cached data, and more. This section houses a mix of junk and important files. In the simplest of terms, the “Other” category is a combination of files that are not recognized as one of the other file types.
To make it clear, see picture below, the app size is 30.8MB, however, the documents & Data is 135MB. This 135 MB is what goes into your “Other” data.
A Mac with two disks will have the storage divided between them. The Mac drive with the OS on it is the startup disk while the other drive is just used for storage of files. It’s possible to have multiple startup disks, but most Macs will only have one.
Q2: How can I check the “Other” storage on my iPhone?
How To Delete Other Storage On Mac
You can connect your iPhone to one PC or Mac, then open the iTunes app. Next, click the “Summary” option, you will see the Storage section. Move the mouse pointer on the yellow part and then you will find out how much space is consumed by “Other” storage on your iPhone.
Q3: How do I get rid of “Other” storage on my iPhone?
There are a few options on how to clear “Other” on iPhone 7. You can clear “Other” data on iPhone 7 manually, or use tools to help you do it quickly and efficiently.
- Part 1. 2 Fast Ways to Clear “Other” Data on iPhone
- Part 2. Most Effective Way to Clear “Other” on Your iPhone
- Part 3. 2 Extra Tricks to Reduce “Other” Storage on iPhone
2 Fast Ways to Clear “Other” Data on iPhone
There are a few options on how to clear “Other” on iPhone. You can clear “Other” data on iPhone manually, or use tools to help you do it quickly and efficiently.
To do it maunually, you can reset your iPhone or uninstall and reinstall all the apps one by one to erase 'other' data.
1. Backup and reset your iPhone
The way to erase all caches and temporary files is to backup your iPhone 7 to your PC, Mac or iCloud account and wipe your iPhone. This will guarantee all temporary files and caches are deleted. After wiping your iPhone 7 you can restore the backup through iTunes to recover your contacts, songs, pictures and apps.
Plug your iPhone to your computer, open it through iTunes and hit Back Up Now and wait until your iPhone 7 syncs. Then, on your iPhone, go to Settings > General > Reset > Erase All Content. Once the iPhone is wiped, plug it back into your computer, open it via iTunes and hit “Restore Backup”. Make sure you choose the right backup data and click restore.
2. Reinstalling your apps to clean App Cache
If you go to Settings > General > Usage, and click on each app, you will see the size of the app itself and the size of Documents & Data. If your Documents & Data section is much bigger than your app, you can delete the app and reinstall it. This should remove the temporary files created by the app and clear some memory space.
Most Effective Way to Clear “Other” on Your iPhone
Designed to specifically take care of these junk files and temporary files, iMyFone Umate Pro or iMyFone Umate Pro for Mac is one of the most efficient tools to clear 'other' space on iPhone.
Key Features of iMyFone iPhone Eraser
Key Features:
- Clean 30+ types of junk files with a click
- Clear temporary files to release huge space
- Photo manager - Exporting & Compressing losslessly & mass deleting photos
- Export and delete large video & audio files
- List all apps by size to select & delete them
- Erase previously deleted files to completely clean them
The biggest benefit of using iMyFone Umate is that it removes unnecessary files safely and efficiently. Manually clearing “Other” can be risky if you are not sure what you are doing. But iMyFone Umate offers a safe, fast and reliable way to remove temporary files. It will guarantee the “Other” section is not taking up so huge amount of space on your iOS device, including iOS 14 devices.
3 Steps to Clear Other Data from iPhone
Note: To completely clear up 'other' data from iPhone, it's also suggested to permanently erase all your previously deleted data using iMyFone Umate Pro via 'Erase Deleted Data' tab.
2 Extra Tricks to Reduce “Other” Storage on iPhone
If you do not want reset your iPhone, you can always clear “Other” data on iPhone manually by erasing voicemails, browser caches and browser history (Safari and Chrome)etc.
1. Erasing Voicemail
Deleting voicemails on iPhone is a bit tricky. Voicemails are stored on your iPhone’s memory, and while swiping a voicemail and hitting “delete voicemail” seems to do the trick it actually doesn’t. That simply puts the voicemail in the “deleted voicemail” list. If you go to the “deleted voicemail” list you can hit the “clear all” button to erase all of them at once.
If the button is grayed out, it may be because the list is too big, or because your iPhone is having a processing glitch. If that’s the case you need to swipe them one by one and hit delete voicemail.
2. Clearing caches and browser history
Chrome and Safari are the two most popular browsers used on iPhone. You can erase the caches and history in Safari by going to Settings > Safari > Clear Cookies and Data/Clear History and Website Data depending on your iOS 14.
You will need to scroll to the bottom to find Clear Cookies and Data/Clear History and Website Data and confirm it by clicking the pop-up box. In Chrome you will have to open the app, hit the Google Menu Button on the right hand side (looks like a stack of three dashes, then go to Settings > Privacy > Clear Cache.
By reading the above solutions, we can see that manual operation could be a hassle. So sometime, we need a tool, meaning a third-party iPhone cleaning software, to clear “Other” space on iPhone.
Well, I guess you have a basic understanding about how to delete other storage on your iPhone now. And any comment about the article will be greatly appreciated.
Device storage
What Is Other In Storage
When you buy your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, it comes with a set storage capacity ranging from 16GB to 512GB for iPhone, 16GB to 1TB for iPad, and 8GB to 256GB for iPod touch. The music you buy, the apps you download, the photos you take, and all of the other content that you enjoy on your device uses its storage. And depending on your device capacity and how much content you have, your device can fill up and run out of storage.
When your device is full, you can’t increase its storage. But you can free up space.
See how much storage you have
- Go to Settings.
- Tap General.
- Tap [device] Storage.
The amount of device storage that you've used is listed at the top.
Free up space on your device
Using the steps above, you might see a list of recommendations for optimizing your device storage, followed by a list of installed apps and the amount of storage each one uses. Tap an app's name for more information about its storage. If you don't see any recommendations, try these steps:
- If you use iCloud Photos and turn on Optimize Storage, you can lower the amount of storage that your photos use on your device.
- You can remove content from your apps like photos, music, and podcasts.
- You can delete apps that you're no longer using.
Learn more about how to optimize the storage on your iOS or iPadOS device.
iCloud storage
When you set up iCloud, you automatically get 5GB of free storage. You can use that storage space to back up your device and to keep all of your photos, videos, documents, and text messages securely stored and updated everywhere. Depending on the size of your backup and the amount of content you keep in iCloud, you might run out of free space. You can make room when you buy more iCloud storage or when you delete content.
See how much iCloud storage you have
- Go to Settings.
- Tap [your name].
- Tap iCloud.
The amount of iCloud storage that you've used is listed at the top.
Buy more iCloud storage
If you use all of your iCloud storage, you can buy more starting at 50GB for $0.99 a month. If you choose a 200GB or 2TB plan, you can share iCloud storage with your family.
Learn more about prices in your country or region.
Free up space in iCloud
Learn how to make more iCloud storage space available when you delete content that you don't need anymore, like backups, photos, files, messages, and more.
Before you delete anything, you might want to make copies of your iCloud content.
Learn more
- iCloud works with your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, Apple TV, Apple Watch, and on your PC with iCloud for Windows when you sign in with your Apple ID.
- Learn how to back up your device using iCloud or your computer.
- Learn what happens to your iCloud storage when you sign up for Apple One.