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- To clear your iPhone's "Other" storage, delete Safari's cache and set your messages to auto-delete.
- You can also offload large apps or delete and reinstall apps with big caches.
- Deleting emails with large attachments and clearing the Mail app's cache can help, too.
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If you have an older iPhone or a model without a large amount of storage, you might be running low on space.
You might already know some of the most common tricks for freeing space on your iPhone, such as deleting unwanted apps, music, and videos.
But there is a different category of storage on your phone. Previously, iOS referred to it as "Other," but has been renamed "System Data" in the latest versions of iOS.
If your other files are taking up a lot of space, you can reclaim some of it to make your iPhone run more smoothly. This will help free space to install apps and updates.
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What is iPhone 'Other' storage?
To see how your iPhone's storage space is used, including the amount of space your "Other" storage is taking up, follow the steps below:
1. Open the Settings app.
2. Tap General.
3. Tap iPhone Storage.
After a few moments, you'll see a graph at the top of the screen that illustrates how much room you have left on your phone.
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What is System Data on iPhone?
System Data — the catch-all "other" storage category — contains miscellaneous files that aren't included in the main categories. This is where Apple stores a huge array of system files that you should rarely (if ever) need to manage.
Some of the most important other files include:
- The Safari browser cache
- Mail cache and mail attachments
- Cache files associated with many apps
- Cache and other system files generated by iOS
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How to clear 'Other' storage on iPhone
Because there are many different kinds of files consuming space on your iPhone, there are several ways to clear space. You can try each one to reclaim as much space as possible.
Clear Safari cache
The lowest hanging fruit in your other storage is usually Safari's browser cache. It's easy to clean but can grow a gigabyte if you don't empty it occasionally.
1. Open the Settings app.
2. Tap Safari.
3. Scroll down and tap Clear History and Website Data.
4. In the popup, tap Clear History and Data.
5. You'll be asked if you want to close all tabs, so tap Close Tabs or Keep Tabs.
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Auto-delete messages
By default, the Messages app is configured to save all your text messages forever. While that's convenient, over time they can take a lot of space. You can have messages automatically delete to reclaim space.
1. Open the Settings app.
2. Tap Messages.
3. Scroll down to the Message History section and tap Keep Messages.
4. Choose a time period to keep messages, such as 1 Year or 30 Days.
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Offload apps
Offloading apps is an alternative to uninstalling large and rarely used apps. When you offload an app, the app itself is deleted, freeing up space, but the app's data is saved. That way, if you ever reinstall the app, the data is still there and you can continue as if the app was never removed.
1. Open the Settings app.
2. Tap General.
3. Tap iPhone Storage.
4. Wait for the list of installed apps on your phone to load and tap on the one you want to offload.
5. Tap Offload App.
6. In the pop-up, tap Offload App.
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Delete social media app cache
Caches are responsible for using up a lot of the storage space on your iPhone.
Some of the biggest culprits are the caches associated with streaming and social media apps. These apps caches hold large quantities of photos, audio, and video so they display faster and playback doesn't buffer in ordinary use.
There's no automatic way to clear the cache of these apps, but you can do it manually. First, start by seeing which apps are using the most storage.
1. Open the Settings app.
2. Tap General.
3. Tap iPhone Storage.
4. Wait for your list of installed apps to load. Apps at the top of the list use the most space. Skip apps like Music and Photos, which are storing your personal files. Then, tap one of your social media apps like Facebook, as they tend to use hundreds of megabytes or more.
5. You can compare that to the actual size of the app as reported in the App Store. For example, tap Facebook and scroll down to the Information section in the App Store to see its size. You can see how much storage is cache as opposed to the app itself.
6. If the app has a very large cache, uninstall the app by going back in the Settings app and tapping Delete app. The cache will be deleted when it's uninstalled.
7. Reinstall the app from the App Store, and you'll start fresh with no bloated cache.
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More ways to clear space on your iPhone
Another way you can reclaim space is by deleting your emails. If you tend to save a lot of emails, that can take up a significant amount of your other storage. To do that, you should delete emails with large attachments.
The Mail app also has its own cache, which tends to get large with time. There's no easy way to clear that cache, but if you remove and re-add your email accounts, it will flush the mail cache in the process.
If you record a lot of voice memos, you might find they are consuming a lot of your available space. To delete them, follow these steps:
1. Open the Voice Memos app.
2. Swipe any unwanted memos to the left.
3. Tap Delete – the trash bin icon – to get rid of the voice memo.
You can also reclaim other storage space by deleting apps you no longer use, since that will clear any cache the apps were using at the same time. If you still need to reclaim additional space, be sure to try some other common ways to free up space on your iPhone as well.
Freelance Writer
Dave Johnson is a technology journalist who writes about consumer tech and how the industry is transforming the speculative world of science fiction into modern-day real life. Dave grew up in New Jersey before entering the Air Force to operate satellites, teach space operations, and do space launch planning. He then spent eight years as a content lead on the Windows team at Microsoft. As a photographer, Dave has photographed wolves in their natural environment; he's also a scuba instructor and co-host of several podcasts. Dave is the author of more than two dozen books and has contributed to many sites and publications including CNET, Forbes, PC World, How To Geek, and Insider.
