IPhone storage capacity - large "Other" category

Had 8GB of space taken up by 'Other' (the bar at the bottom of iTunes) and just did a full 'new phone' restore followed by a backup restore from iCloud. I also turned off PhotoStream. Other is now down to 900MB, which feels reasonable (I have quite a few documents on the phone, including iMovie and Garageband projects).
But how did it balloon to 8GB? That's about a third of the total capacity of my 32GB iPhone 5. My photostream should have been big, but not that big.
As near as I can tell it was some sort of temp file/buffer allotment, previously deleted projects and videos and photos were kind of caught in limbo. Apple needs to fix storage management for iOS, where it keeps space available if it's occupied by old, unwanted data.
Has anyone found a way of clearing Other and optimizing storage besides through restores and using third party file exploration utilities?
TL;DR - greatly reduced the size of 'Other' by doing a full restore then restoring from a backup.
I'll do an experiment and turn PhotoStream back on now, and see what happens in the next while.

"Other" is often inflated by corrupted files, perhaps there as a result of some faulty app.
The general way to clear "Other" (down to approx. 1GB) is to do a restore just as you have done.

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    Make sure you've imported all pictures taken by the iPhone into your computer.
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    "Other" that large indicates corruption... restore the device from backup.  If "Other" is still large (greater than 1GB) restore as new.

  • "Other" category in iPhone

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    Restoring from backup helped me slightly. It went down to 0.8 gb, but its back to 2 gb again.
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  • Why is the "other" category for capacity so big?

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  • IPhone bloated "Other" category

    Using an older iPhone 4, current iOS and iTunes (for ML).
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  • My iPhone has a large amount of capacity used by other as shown in iTunes when sync.  I can't determine where 4.3 GB of other is from.  Even eliminating all of the categories of music, movies and the like it still uses 4.3 GB for other?

    My iPhone has developed a large amount of "other" as shown on how the capacity is used when sync in iTunes.  Even eliminating songs, ovies and all other sync items it still uses 4.3 GB of other.  This is a relativily new development.  How can I determine the cause and free up this capacity?

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  • What is considered to be under the "other" category in Iphone storage?

    My phone says its storage is full but I have very small amounts of pictures and music and apps.  According to the graph that comes up when I sync my phone, my phone is filled up of mostly "other"  I do not know what is contained in this "other" category and I want to reduce my storage.

    "Other" is anything that does not fit in the other defined catergories.
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