iTunes “Other” Capacity Taking Up Tons of Space? Here’s a Fix for iPhone & iPad
Back on the topic of iOS disk usage, we received a helpful tip regarding that mysterious iTunes “Other” space that sometimes erroneously reports massive numbers, like 14GB taken up out of a 16GB capacity device.
Fix iTunes “Other” from Taking Up Large Amounts of Space
- Connect the iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to a computer and launch iTunes
- Click on the “Summary” tab and scroll down to ‘Options’
- Click the checkbox next to “Open iTunes when this iPad (iPhone) is connected” so that is is unchecked, then click it again so that it is checked
Presumably this works because it forces the iOS device to recalculate the “Other” space, which is supposed to be relatively small at about 500MB-2GB, depending on overall device capacity. It holds things like your Contacts, SMS database, settings, etc, and it’s very unlikely for it to be anywhere near the huge numbers that are occasionally reported.
This tip comes from one of our readers, and several others have chimed in with positive results, here’s a fairly significant example:
After unchecking and then checking “Open iTunes when this iPad is connected”, I went from 37.7GB of “Other” space down to 1.79GB. Neat.
Try it out, let us know if this works for you.
“Other” Still Huge? Try This
If the above trick didn’t work, Ken left a helpful tip in the comments which is working for some users:
- Uncheck things you want to sync, excluding apps
- Apply changes
- Re-enable the items you want to sync
- Apply changes again
That should force everything to recalculate as well.
[...] can fix the iTunes “Other” huge space issue by simply unchecking and re-checking “Open iTunes when this device is connected” from [...]
“Other” data occupies 1.57gigs in my unblocked and jailbroken iPhone 3GS with T-mobile for carrier. Any suggestions as to how to resolve the issue without having to restore it? Thanks
I have the same problem im trying so hard to figure out ways to stop others bar from growing.
What i did was i went through and deleted all the album artwork. yes it is a hassle but it worked! the way i did it quickly was right click the song then go to get info then click the tab labeled artwork and pressed delete and if you press next at the bottom left of the screen you can quickly delete all the artwork.
I deleted every song’s artwork and it didn’t affect my “other.”
THIS WORKED AWESOMELY!!!
Thank you!!
I had over 2gb of “other” when I first updated to iOS5, and got it down to .7gb after a couple restores. Just tried the above fix and didn’t get any change in my “other” capacity. Does anyone else have some tips or thoughts?
Have 0.71GB of other. This fix didn’t change it.
^That’s exactly what the amount I have.
iPhone 4 – 0.90GB …. Fix didn’t change it either, although I’ve never really paid attention to this, since I don’T consider .9GB a lot (still have 14.2GB free space).
It is grayed out on my iPad2/iPhone 4.
mine is grayed out too…
open itunes. edit>preferences>devices>uncheck “prevent ipods, iphones, and ipad from syncing automatically”>ok
that makes the “open itunes when device is connected” available. but i still had the over capacity problem as well.
I watched my Other (1.59GB) while syncing. It went up and down while syncing and ended with the same as when I started. I checked and unchecked. Should I be checking then closing out itunes and then opening and rechecking. I did not close itunes after unchecking.
Worked for me on an iPod touch, not just iPad and iPhones!
It was greyed out on my ipod touch also…
Didn’t work for me on my iphone 4S.
It worked for me. It took a couple tries. I was freaking out it showed over 8GB. I had to remove a bunch of audio just to sync.
Thanks
I have my iPad 2 plugged in, and my other space is .58 GB. But when I toggle the Open iTunes when this iPad is connected on and off, my free space goes from 2.2 GBs (with it unchecked) to 5.9 GBs (with it checked) of Free space. Now my iPad 2 itself tells me that I have 2.2 GBs of free space. Something fishy seems to be happening. Any ideas from those above?
I have the same problem!! Anyone can help?
Didn’ t change anything for me, iphone4 16go. And 2 go of “others” since ios5 (0 before ios5) i ve lost 2 go of free space since ios5, i had 4 go free space before that, what can i do??
Help
Same here. This time, it screwed up my photos data. Other data still looks rather decent.
Help? Please?
My easy fix was to uncheck the auto sync for photos and music. Then sync iPhone with PC. Then re-check these two options and load back on all photos and music. Now ‘other’ is very small.
My fix was to connect my iPad to iTunes and then turn off the iPad. I turned it back on while still connected to iTunes and my ‘other’ went from 4.1 GB to .4 GB. Restore takes too long
i tried what you said but my other went from 6.4 gb to 6.3 gb
I too did a hard shut down by holding the power button and the round button on the screen. Behold, my iPad2 recalculated and my other went from 12.5gb to .68 thank you
Yep – worked for me also on IPad 2. Went from 8.9 GB to 0.79GB
Thx!
I’m so frustrated. None of these suggestions worked for me. It still says I have over 11GB of “other” and I can’t get rid of it.
Tried another method and it worked. Uncheck the things you want to sync (except apps). Apply changes. Re-enable the items you want synced. Apply changes. “Other” is recalculated and for me, it went down from 11.3 GB to just over 1.
As wierd as this sounds, I unchecked everything I had checked except the apps. Applied the changes — it synced. Then I rechecked everything I had checked before — it resynced and my Other went from 1.59GB to .99GB This is wierder then MS. ( I had done all other suggestions with no change)
@Ken. Your method worked for me…. Thanks
My capacity showed as 28.36 or so, and after I upgraded to iOS5, I had 27-some GB of “other”!! I could hardly put any songs on. I found this site and the uncheck and check Open iTunes when connected, but my option was grayed out, like others. So I unchecked and checked the remaining four options. That got my “other” down to hardly anything.
If anyone else has this problem, uncheck and re-check all those that you can and see if it helps! Good luck..
[...] iTunes “Other” Capacity Taking Up Tons of Space? Here’s a Fix for iPhone & iP… iTunes “Other” Capacity Taking Up Tons of Space? Source: osxdaily.com [...]
my iPhone is only 16gb, yet it tells me I have 13.7gb photos, 0.03gb apps, 0.34 other and 13.7 gb free.
What’s going on? Help!
The fix here did not work on my iPad 2. Ran “restore” from within iTunes and that fixed it.
Ken’s method worked for me also!!!!
thanks guys!
using iPhone4
Yeah its the music that has been getting confused… The music doubled up on mine and became 10 gig of ‘Other’ afterwards claiming it was over capacity, so did 5 of my friends. I fixed all of it, but deselecting Sync Music, and re-syncing… it seems that this is the problem. Hope this helps
Yeah its the music that has been getting confused… The music doubled up on mine and became 10 gig of ‘Other’ afterwards claiming it was over capacity, so did 5 of my friends. I fixed all of there phones with this technique, but deselecting Sync Music, and re-syncing… it seems that this is the problem. Hope this helps..
Sorry for reposting, it got all jumbled the first time
It’s a simple fix really- as per Ken above – deselect music to effectively unsync – once this has completed – other files reduce back to normal and you can resync music.
Looks like the OTHER is a backup of unsynced tracks.
Thank god for FORUMS
Ken – your method worked!! everyone else’s didn’t
Wow. What an amazing thing. Every time I tried one of these tips, my “Other” increased bit by bit. Started at 0.88GB and went to 0.91GB
I finally decided to use Ken’s method.
My “Other” went from 0.91GB to 3.2GB.
Thanks for nothing!
Should have known better than to follow these tips. Live and learn.
Edited to add:
The correct way to do this is to restore the device. See the Apple Help Forums for the entire correct method.
That fixed me. Thanks!!
None of these have worked for my iPh4-16GB. Still excessive 4GB ‘other’ after installing version 5 mobile upgrade….grrr.
“other” is taking up 6.7 GB on my iphone. i dont know why or what it is.
“Other” on my phone is taking up 15 GB. Have tried all the above (even wiping the phone and restoring) but no luck. I had an issue a few months ago with all my texts deleting but they are still searchable on the phone. I am wondering if that error is what is taking up all that space? It was approximately 1 years worth of texts/mms. I don’t think that could be 15 GB worth, but who knows?
Anyone? Anyone?
Mine has 15 GB’s of other too. I have no idea how to get it to go away.
yes – uncheck FTW!
Ken’s method worked for me as well (from 9.5G of “other” down to .58G) but I have no idea why!
Never thought I would have to say that my Apple iPhone is getting to be far too much like a Microsoft product. Not good.
uncheck it doesn’t work for me..:-(…any tips please
Not working. In fact, it has made it worse. From 2.5GB to 3.2 GB after doing these tips !!
Congratulations
I spent hours, many hours doing each of the suggestions, starting with the uncheck options and eventually restore… NOTHING WORKED.
I have 13.2 GB in my other.
There is nothing that could be in there labeled wrong, as was mentioned might be a problem. I am really hoping that somebody has a actual fix for this because I am disgusted with Apple more each time I speak to them and I have 3 Apple computers as well as the iPhone. I really can’t think about replacing them all right now. Yikes. …Help. Somebody? lol …Please?
iPhone4 – I had to do option two (repeated below) to get “Other” to shrink from over 7GB to 0.73GB. Very happy camper right now! Thanks for the fix!
—– Repeat of steps that worked for me —–
“Try it out, let us know if this works for you.
“Other” Still Huge? Try This
If the above trick didn’t work, Ken left a helpful tip in the comments which is working for some users:
•Uncheck things you want to sync, excluding apps
•Apply changes
•Re-enable the items you want to sync
•Apply changes again
That should force everything to recalculate as well.”
The “Other” stuff, that no info anywhere to be found, still remains as a mystery. However, the data size changes from time to time for no reason, depending on what you were doing. One of the most common issues i have encountered with it, was whenever i delete a move from the phone without syncing with the iTunes, then i see a sudden increase of data size in the “Other” folder. after browsing around for a long time, i came to realize, that when i deleted the video from iPhone before i connected to the iTunes, then connected to the iTunes, the system did not recognize or register the actual date size of the iPhone. so what it does, after you connect the phone to the iTunes, it actually doubles the size of the video that you’ve removed, and it stores in the “Other” folder sort of as caching in that folder. So the system kind of gets confused, and doesn’t know what’s the right thing to do. Deleted it or store it in the Other folder, so then it decides, well, instead of deleting the file and feeling sorry afterwards, why don’t we just store/cashe both files in the “Other” folder and let the user figure it out the hard way how to deal with it. as a result, the system end up cashing both files in the Other folder. One file from iPhone and one from iTunes. this is the result of the “stressed confusion”. Now how to get rid of the unwanted files that were paired in the cash, simply disconnect the iPhone from iTunes and “Power Off” the phone, then power the phone on, then restart the iTunes by closing it completely then relaunching it again. Then connect the phone to the iTunes and check the “Other” properties, you’ll see the size has been reduced down to 0.6GB, which believed to be the iOS partition.
goto setting,general,music on iphone4 edit then – to delete.no data on music then sync to itunes let it run for a fue 10 sec then stop . others went from6.4 to 0.95
Hey everyone, IF non of the above works for you, you can try this (provided your device is jailbroken) Try deleting the stuffs you downloaded from Installous, not the app itself, but the app under Installous/downloads/downloaded…these downloaded files takes up those ‘others’ space…try it and see if it works for you, it reduced mine by quite abit so hope it works for you guys!! cheers!
It perfectly makes sense!
I didn’t realized that
Thanks!
Thank you Goh. I deleted all downloads from iPad (Installuos) and it shrinkes to 1.1GB level from 3GB (I have 16GB iPad2 so this 3GB was a huge ‘Others’ level). I used iFile for doing that.
Thanks
i did according to Ken’s method but it still did not work for me. my others was still 8.8GB. help?
My resolution was with the device only: Settings … General … Usage …, and I was able to account for the “other” space. An app was using it.
No… that doesn’t work. All that space was under “apps” when I released it.
Wow -this actually worked. Thank you so much! I’ve been trying to work this out for days. Was restoring my iPhone 4S 64GB to a backup and copying everything back, taking a very long time, but that was the Apple solution, and the one I’d read that worked every time.
These steps fixed the issue immediately.
– un-ticked “Open iTunes when this iPhone is connected”,
– un-ticked “Sync with this iPhone over Wi-Fi”
I might turn Wi-Fi syncing back on though, that’s handy.
Thanks for the simple solution that the Apple website wasn’t able to provide!
On iPhone 4, my other was over 2GB. I was on version 5.0.1. When I allowed the phone to update to the latest version 5.1 (which it had been asking to do ever since it came out a few weeks ago), the other dropped down to 1.25GB. So my problem was that the phone had downloaded about 1GB of data it for its update that it stored in “other” until I allowed it to update.
Thank you very much for this tip! My “Other” usage shrank from 1.41 GB to 0.56 GB after installing this software update! I wish I’d tried this before resorting to DiskAid and other crazy methods that I read online…
Oh my god, it worked amazingly! <3 Thank you.
did a hard reset and my ipad2 and my “other” went from 12.5 gb in other to .68gb
I have >15GB of other!! Can’t get rid of it!
“Open iTunes when this iPad (iPhone) is connected” is unchecked (and always was) Help!!!! please!!
awesome thanks why is apple not giving info????
After doing a system restore on my 4S (16GB model), other shrank by 3 GB. Of course, it was jailbroken at one point, so there may have been some legacy files from that.
Amazing! This worked for me, went from nearly 2Gb to 0.47! Ta!
icleaner works flawlessly for me. Got rid of a lil over 11gb. Phone (4) runs smoothly.