iPhone "Other" Storage Huge? 4 Steps to Reduce It

Many Apple users are puzzled by the "Other" storage on their iPhones—what exactly is taking up all that space? It’s often unclear what’s included in "Other" storage, making it difficult to manage.

If you’ve noticed that "Other" storage is taking up a lot of space but aren’t sure how to clear it, you’re in the right place. In this post, we’ll first explain what’s included in "Other" storage and then walk you through 4 practical steps to clear it from your iPhone. Keep reading!

What is "Other" in iPhone Storage?

iPhone storage is divided into several parts. Each part is as clear as its name except for the category - Other.

Other storage includes caches, logs, and other resources currently in use by the system. This value will fluctuate according to system needs.

So when your iPhone's Other storage is huge, just start by cleaning these caches, logs, etc.

How to Reduce Other Storage on iPhone [4 Steps]

Unlike Photos, Mail, and Apps, you can’t clear all Other storage from your iPhone, but there are various ways to reduce it.

So, if you want to reduce the Other storage on your iPhone, you can try one method mentioned below or practice them all!

Step 1. Clear Safari Cache

First, let’s start with an easy-to-do way - clear Safari cache. It saves you from tedious steps and proves to be effective in reducing the Other storage on your iPhone. All you need to do is to:

1. Open Settings.
2. Find and tap Safari.
3. Tap Clear History and Website Data＞Clear History and Data.

   

4. Tap Close Tabs or Keep Tabs according to your needs.

Most of the time, Automatically Save Offline is not necessary. It saves all Reading List items from iCloud for offline reading. So just turn off it.

Step 2. Update Your iOS

Updating iOS is an effective yet easy way to clear Other storage on iPhone, which is recommended by Apple officials.

After updating, some temporary files, caches, etc will be removed. And some new features that take up less space will replace old features, saving you a lot of space.

Perform the following actions to check for an update: Open Settings＞General＞Software Update.

Step 3. Clear Built-in Apps' Cache

As you can see, the Apps is one content category shown at the colorful bar. However, here the App refers to the built-in app of iOS.

With time, your iPhone may accumulate more and more built-in app caches, like Music cache, Notes cache, Voice Memos cache, etc.

There is no way to clear these caches directly, However, you can manually clear them by deleting these apps and reinstalling them.

But if there are some important data, you can make a backup before deleting it, or just delete the unimportant content in them.

Step 4. Reset Your iPhone

Reset iPhone is one of the most effective ways to free up your iPhone space. But this will erase all your data.

So before resetting your iPhone, remember to transfer your important data to your computer, external hard drive, USB stick, etc.

Back up important data to iCloud is also a good choice. But it’s worth noting that iCloud only offers you 5 GB of free space. The extra use needs to be paid.

Follow the steps below to reset your iPhone:

1. Open Settings.
2. Tap General＞Scroll down and tap Reset＞Erase All Content and Settings.
3. Enter your passcode＞Tap Erase iPhone.

Final Words

Hope these methods help you successfully out of the "iPhone Other storage is huge" problem.

Have a thorough cleaning for your iPhone, iPad, and Mac regularly to keep them running at a high speed and like a new one.

Clearing your iPhone and iPad may be time-consuming. However, if you want to do a big cleaning for your Mac, here is a Mac cleaner - BuhoCleaner that can free up your hands. Explore more in it if saving time and effort is what you need and care about most.