Are you wondering how you can clear Other storage on iPhone and get more space?
Nowadays, iPhones have a storage capacity ranging between 64GB – 512GB. Despite hundreds of requests for the past years, Apple still does not give its iPhone users an option to add an external memory card for additional storage.
If you’re a heavy user, storing files on your iPhone can be challenging if you have limited storage.
When you are trying to squeeze in more data on your device, you’ll start looking into your storage information. Now, you’re probably wondering what that odd-looking gray bar labeled as ‘Other’ is.
Based on what we know, the ‘Other’ category on your iPhone’s storage comprises system caches, logs, and other application resources.
Unfortunately, there’s no way to identify which data fall precisely in the ‘Other’ category.
Nonetheless, you can still clear some of it, especially if it takes too much space on your iPhone.
Today, we will show you how to clear ‘Other’ storage on your iPhone.
Let’s get right into it!
1. Check How Much Store ‘Other’ Occupies.
Before clearing the ‘Other’ category in your storage, you should first identify how much space it consumes. This way, you can decide if it’s worth clearing already or not. Usually, if it sits below 2GB, we don’t recommend clearing your ‘Other’ storage.
You can check your Other storage by doing the following:
- Go to the Settings app on your phone and select General.
- In General, tap on iPhone Storage.
- From there, you will see how much storage is used. The summary is color-coded according to the type of file or data that is consuming your storage capacity.
- You can also view the list of all the apps on your iPhone. Scroll down until you see System and Other.
If you think that your ‘Other’ storage needs to be cleared, proceed to the following method below to start the process.
2. Clear Safari Site Data.
One of the applications that contribute to your ‘Other’ storage is Safari. All your browser history, data, and cache are stored on your phone, which can consume a reasonable amount of storage after some time.
Here’s how you can clear Safari’s website data:
- First, tap the Settings app on your iPhone, and go to General.
- Now, tap on iPhone Storage, scroll down to the app list, and click on Safari.
- After that, access the Website Data tab.
- Lastly, choose the Remove All Website Data option located at the bottom of the screen and tap Remove Now.
Once done, go back to your iPhone’s storage tab and see if the ‘Other’ storage size was reduced.
3. Change How Long You Keep Messages.
Another thing that you can do to save some storage on your iPhone is by limiting how long messages stay on your device. Depending on your preference, you can set it to 30 Days, a year, or forever.
See the steps below to change your message history settings:
- On your main screen, tap on the Settings app and access the Messages tab.
- After that, scroll down to Message History.
- Finally, tap on Keep Messages and choose 30 Days.
Keep in mind that this setting will force your iPhone to delete messages that are older than 30. Once your messages are removed, they will be removed from your device, and you can no longer recover them.
4. Clear Application Caches.
Some applications on iOS allow their users to clear their cache to free up storage space. Caches are temporary data applications use to load content faster, like your previous activity, user data, and more.
However, the process of clearing application caches may vary depending on the app you’re using.
In this guide, we will show you how to clear app cache on Spotify:
- First, open the Spotify app on your phone.
- After that, tap on the Gear icon on the upper right corner of your screen to access the Settings.
- Now, go to the Storage tab.
- Lastly, tap the Delete Cache button and follow the on-screen prompts to continue with the process.
Don’t worry about doing this process, as it will only delete temporary data, and your downloaded songs or podcasts won’t be affected.
5. Reinstall Applications.
If some of your applications don’t have the option to clear cache, you can delete them from your iPhone and reinstall them afterward. This will remove all the data stored on your device, which should clear some of your ‘Other’ storage.
Check out the guide below to reinstall apps on your iOS device:
- First, locate the app that you want to delete from your home screen.
- Next, tap and hold its app icon to access the selection menu.
- Lastly, tap on Remove App to delete the application from your iPhone.
Once done, go to the App Store and reinstall the app from there. You can do this process twice a year to keep your iPhone’s storage in a healthy state.
6. Backup and Reset Your iPhone.
Suppose you still need to clear some storage space on your iPhone. In that case, we recommend resetting your device back to factory defaults to ensure that all temporary data and caches are cleared permanently from your storage.
Before resetting your device, make sure to secure a backup first. Here’s how to do it:
- First, connect your iPhone to a computer and launch iTunes.
- After that, grant permission to your computer to access your iPhone.
- Now, click on the iPhone icon in the upper left window of iTunes.
- Finally, click on Backup Now.
Once you have a backup of your iOS device, you can now reset it by doing the following:
- On your iPhone, go to the Settings and access the General tab.
- Next, tap on Reset.
- Lastly, select Erase All Content and Settings and follow the on-screen prompts to continue with the process.
Your iPhone will automatically turn off. Once it restarts, you have to do the initial setup process. To retrieve the backup you did, connect to your computer where you backed up using iTunes, and then follow the on-screen instructions.
This brings us to the end of our guide. We hope we were able to help you clear ‘Other’ storage on your iPhone. If you have questions or other concerns, don’t hesitate to leave a comment below, and we’ll be ready to answer them.
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