Other category is eating up my whole phone

I have the iPhone 4S, 16 gb. Shortly after I bought it about a year ago, the Other category ballooned up to 8 gb. There were dozens of proposed methods to get the Other category down to normal size but nothing worked so I completely reset my phone. The other category stayed at normal size for several months and then for no reason at all jumped to 4gb. Now it's at 6 gb. I am really disappointed that Apple has not corrected this problem despite endless posts from people like me explaining the problem. We shouldn't have to flatten our phones every few months and start over.
If anyone has a method that works I'm all ears.

I think "other" is App Data and corrupted files.
Maybe some apps have many data in.
You can check this in Settings>iCloud>Storage and Backup>Manage storage>"your" iPhone and look at the "Backup options" list. Except the "Camera roll" all others are the "App Data".
Go to iTunes plug your iPhone then go to apps tab and scroll down under the apps box. Here are some of the apps that contains data. You can't see here data of a game or some others apps here.
If you are running iOS 5 you can check one by one your apps in Settings>General>Usage. These sizes are the apps sizes (except "Music" and "Photos & Camera") but if you tap on them you can see the "documents and data" size.
I believe there are also data from email accounts (especially POP accounts), caches from apps, maybe thumbnails from photos or albums artwork.
Check all these and then make a backup and restore from that.

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I have a problem since installing ios6 when backing up to a laptop I got a message stating there was not enough room on the c: drive, the iTunes bar indicated that apps, etc were using space, but the yellow 'others' category was eating up all the space

I'm running out of space on the bar that shows the usage split (how many gb's for apps photos, music etc) the yellow 'others' category seems to be taking up all the available space. This is happening after updating to ios6. I don't seem to be able to get the backup on my laptop to complete successfully. I'm also unable to get Music to work on the phone. The picture of the cloud appears on screen, sometimes the blue bar appears, but after a while it bombs out and nothing else happens. Any ideas?

It does not immediately delete the files that are missing.. it merely tries to backup the new files it has discovered on the external drive. Since you moved the files there, the backup at least for a while will contain both copies.. and that is why it doesn't have enough space to backup.
Fixing the problem.. hmm pondini is the expert.. you should be able to delete the backup of the photos in existing backup.. there are instructions to do it.. but it is a very poor way to do things.
Much better. .archive off the existing backup.. this is long and slow but worth it. you need a usb drive of the same size as the TC drive. Then erase the TC and start a fresh set of backups.
The alternative is to use the USB drive as a new target.. but it is much slower than the TC internal drive.
http://pondini.org/TM/12.html

What data is in the other category when I back up my phone?

Hello Everyone,
Like most, my iphone/16gb 4s is bursting at the seams with apps, audio and such. When I look at the categories of data on my phone via itunes and the color bar at the bottom I see photos, apps, audio, etc... I have one large category titled "other". Does anyone know what exactly that is and how can I manage it???
Many thanks for your time!
steve

Hi ambropoetica,
Welcome to the Support Communities!
The article below may be able to help you with this. Click on the link to see more details and screenshots.
iPhone, iPad, and iPod: Understanding capacity
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1867
iOS: "Not enough free space" alert when trying to sync
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1503?viewlocale=en_US
Orphaned files may remain on your iOS device if it is physically disconnected while syncing music, podcasts, videos, or photos. This can prevent iTunes from syncing the iOS device on subsequent sync sessions. When this happens, the Capacity indicator in iTunes may report a large amount of "Other" disk usage for the iOS device. To resolve this issue:
Turn off the music or photo sync option in iTunes for the device.
Click Apply to sync the changes to the device.
Turn the music and photo sync options for the device on again.
Click Apply again to try to sync the device to iTunes.
If the 'Not enough free space' alert appears, continue to step 5.
Turn off the automatic syncing functions for the iOS device. To do this:
Select the iOS device from the iTunes window and click the Summary tab.
Deselect "Automatically sync when this device is connected" and select the "Sync only checked songs and videos" checkbox.
Click Apply to sync the changes to the device.
Reduce the amount of data that is being synced to the device and resync the device. For example, if syncing your Music library exceeds the memory capacity of the device, choose "Selected playlists" to transfer rather than "All songs and playlists" under the Music tab in iTunes.
If the 'Not enough free space' alert appears, continue to step 6.
Restore using iTunes.
Cheers,
- Judy

My phone keeps saying I am running low on storage space. Over half of the contents in it is in the "other" category. what does that include? I wish to have more music

I have a 16GB iphone but am an avid music lover. I own tons of music. I have iMatch and iCloud. As of right now my phone says I only use about half of the storage space on it in audio. Very litle is used for apps or pictures. I have another half of the storage space in a category called "Other". What is in that category? I would really like to add more music however my storage keeps stating I am almost full and need to manage. I would delete things if I thought it would make more room but it seems to take very little room off when I remove apps and pictures and does not really affect the other category. Someone please help describe what is in that category and how I can change add more room. Thank you!

This indicates corrupt files.
A restore should resolve.

I cannot add an e-mail account (Cox) on my iPhone 5S that is in the "Other" category and is a POP account. The phone seems to automatically create the account as IMAP. How to I create a POP account?

I cannot add an e-mail account (Cox communications) on my iPhone 5S that is in the "Other" category and is a POP account. Yhje phone automatically creares the account as IMAP. How do I create a POP account?

This indicates corrupt files.
A restore should resolve.

Why is iPhone Other Category Taking up Half my Phone's Storage?

I have restored my 16 GB iPhone 4S twice, once from iTunes and once from iCloud. I can't get the 8.9 GB of the Other category to go down. The Other category is only a tiny sliver on my iPad. I've read many posts on this problem but have not found a solution that works.

I restored it back to factory default in iTunes. After that I added all of my settings and apps back to the phone from a backup.
Are you saying the only way is to start from scratch and rebuild my entire contact list, apps etc?

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The two things to try first are renewing your network lease, forgetting the network and if that doesn't work to reset all networks. You might have tried one of these but I'll repeat the steps just to make sure.
Settings > Wi-Fi > tap the blue arrow to the right of your network name > Renew Lease
If that doesn't work then
Settings > Wi-Fi > tap the blue arrow to the right of your network name > Forget this Network
If that doesn't work
Settings > General > Networks > Reset All Networks > then reset your iPhone by
Press and hold the Home and Sleep buttons simultaneously ignoring the red slider until the Apple logo appears. Let go of the buttons and let the device restart.
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When looking at how much room is taken up by audio, apps, etc. on your phone in iTunes, what is the "other" category?

When looking at how much room is taken up by audio, apps, etc. on your phone in iTunes, what is the "other" category?

"Other" contains documents and app data associated with apps. It can also contain things like stored emails and browser history. It's usually around 1-2gigs. If it's any more than that, there's a chance that you have corrupted data on your iPad. The only way to fix that problem is to restore your iPad to factory settings and start anew.

HT4993 I cant believe that in the app store they dont have an app that locks messages and other apps without locking the whole phone wish they had like android has :(

Its really sad I love my iphone 5 a lot. Used to be an android user but wanted an iphone im happy but I just cant believe that it does not keep my messages private without locking my whole phone that really ***** big turn off!

If the app is no longer in the store then you won't be able to redownload it, and if you haven't got a copy of it anywhere (you don't have another iOS device which has it on ?), and if you haven't got a backup of the iPad on your computer's iTunes (if you haven't got a backup then you won't have the app's content), then you won't be able to get it and your passwords back.

"Other" Category eating up memory

I've had my 4GB iPod Nano for about two years now, and since I've gotten it, I've always had the "Other" category of my iPod fill up more memory space than it should. When I had my old iPod Mini, the "Other" category was tiny, like about 2-5 percent of the iPod's total memory. With my iPod Nano, the "Other" category is taking up between 50-60 percent of the iPod's memory. I believe the cause stems from updating songs because when I try to add a couple songs, and the upload fails, the "Other" category still increases while the music space does not.
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I am having the same problem with the "other" category taking up all of my space. I believe that my music files have been corrupted and that I need to reformat. However, I have some pictures on my iPod that I dont have on this computer. Is there any way to get these photos off before I reformat? Or is there any way to get my corrupted music files back without having to reformat and sync it again, because the computer with those files is 4,000 miles away from me right now.
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I have an iphone 4 that is unlocked (when my contract ended, I called AT&T and unlocked the phone since I was going abroad and needed a new carrier) and the "other" category is out of control. It was at about 3GB and I did everything possible to try to remove it - cleared cache, deleted data from apps, deleted messages and voice memos, but nothing worked- it just kept coming.
I reset the phone and restored from back up, and it seemed to fix the problem. But then I checked it again and the "other" category is steadily creeping up again. It went from 500MB to 3.5GB again in about two hours. It seems to be just trying to take up all of the remaining space available on the phone.
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Thanks, Thomas. I can see the data usage by app, but that's the problem- there is nothing that it taking up that much space. The largest ones are these:
Whatsapp: App size: 61.8MB, Data and documents 108 MB
Facebook: App size: 91.2MB, Documents and data: 49.3MB
Photos and camera: 131MB
I systematically went through and deleted all of my conversations in messages, so I know that there are no photos/ videos hiding there.
I really think that it's coming from something I can't see, especially since it's still there after resetting to factory settings and restoring from backup.
There only reason there is 1.75GB of available space is because I deleted all of my music so that at least it wouldn't be over capacity!! This is so frustrating!

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How to clear the 'Other' category in my Blackberry Curve memory?

So, I have found that on my device memory, 50% of the memory is being used. That's fine of course - I have a ton of pictures and loads of music, so it only makes sense - but I recently found that 26% of that 50% is being used up by a white category labeled "Other".
Seeing this, I cleared /everything/. Everything to do with my browser, the languages I didn't need deleted off of my phone, the documents I didn't need, all but one of my games (brickbreaker) and nearly all uneeded files.
After doing all this, I checked the memory again, and found that the "other" category had gone /up/ by 1%. So I'm really puxxled by that and it's bugging the hell outta me.
Anyone know how else I can clear this "other" category?
P.S
My memory statistics are as follows:
Music: 20%
Pictures: 2%
Ringtones: <1%
Other: 27%
Free: 49%
Halp please.

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I don't know what I did but my whole phone book is empty. ?

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Hi. I'm new to the iPhone, but I have had iPods for 5 years or so. I don't know if it works the same, but here's what I know from my iPod experience.
Each iPod is associated with a particular iTunes account. If you plug your device into your computer, it should see your iTunes account and do what ever you have set your iTunes to do when it sees your device (mine is set to sync automatically). If you plug into a different computer, it asks if you want to sync to that iTunes, and if you say yes, it will replace your content with what is in the other iTunes account.
Still, you say it was your own computer that did this to you, so I'm a bit stumped. It sounds like when you had the iPhone 4 you had different content than when you got your iPhone 5. What was the difference? Songs, contacts, photos, apps, etc.? Do you still have the content of your iPhone 5 on your computer? I have only managed my iPhone with my computer, with the exception of downloading a few apps directly, but those apps get placed on my computer when I sync, so I was under the impression that other things that go directly to your phone would also sync, but maybe that's wrong on my part.
You might want to open iTunes on your computer and go to Store>View My Account to make sure you have the correct log-in. Could it be that you made a new Apple ID with the new phone, and your computer is still logged in with your old one?
Please post back if you find a solution, or if you have any new info.

Other category is eating up my whole phone

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