Last night as i was syncing my 32gb iPhone 3GS i noticed the issue of “other files” taking up almost half the memory on the iPhone, without any information or clue as to why that all of a sudden happened.
First thing i did was think through if there were any files i had added to the iPhone or any apps installed that would hog the memory in such a way, but could not think of anything. So i started searching on Google to see if anyone else have had the same problem with “other files” eating up iPhone memory, and there seemed to be quite a lot of people out there experiencing the same issue, but a lack of clear explanations as how you can fix it.
A lot 0f the people who has experienced this issue had chosen to do a complete restore of the iPhone, a task that depending on the iPhone model you have could take +5 hours and a lot of headache. Then i came across a post from TiPb.com on resetting iPhone when “other files” take up memory and how they had done a complete restore, but in the comments, and there were lots of them, some of the readers suggested alternative ways to do it that seemed easier and less time heavy.
I used the method suggested and it worked out really well for me, and saved me a lot of time, so i decided to share the step-by-step guide on how to remove and fix the problem with “other files” taking over your iPhone memory.
Here are the steps that worked brilliantly for me:
Step 1: Turn of sync music in iTunes
When you have synced your iPhone and noticed that “other files” have taken up a lot of storage space on the iPhone, un-tick the “sync music” alternative in iTunes before un-connecting your iPhone.
Step 2: Install DiskAid software on computer/mac
DiskAid is a neat little software that allows you transfer files to your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad, treating it as a USB drive. They offer a free trial of the software so no need to purchase it first time you have to use it at least.
Make sure your iPhone is connected with the USB when you open up DiskAid. When the program is running, at the bottom left corner it says “DiskAid folder”, click on the drop down list and choose “media folders”.
Step 3: Go into iTunes Control folder and then the Music folder
In DiskAid you will see an overview of all the folders and files on your iPhone. Go to the iTunes Control Folder and then the subfolder called Music. Under the Music folder you will likely see a lot of subfolders starting with “f”.
Step 4: Delete/remove all subfolders in Music
Delete all the subfolders under the Music folder. They include the files that are hogging your iPhone memory under “other files”.
Step 5: Open iTunes and sync your iPhone
With “music sync” still turned off in iTunes, sync your iPhone. This will remove all music files from your iPhone, but keep all other content. Don’t worry about this though, as in the next steps you will sync the music back onto your iPhone.
Step 6: Unplug iPhone and reboot it
Once the iPhone has finished syncing, unplug it and perform a reboot. The reboot is done by holding down the “power down” button at the top right at the same times as holding down the control button. Hold both of them until the iPhone has switched off and the Apple logo appears on the screen before releasing both buttons. This action will reboot your iPhone.
Step 7: Reconnect your iPhone to iTunes and recheck “sync music”
This will put your music back onto the iPhone, and you should not see any of the “other files” taking up any of the iPhone memory. Once the sync is complete your iPhone should be all sorted again.
If you still see “other files” taking up memory on your iPhone you have likely done something wrong or left out subfolders in step 4.
Hope you find this guide as useful as our guide on unfreezing and restoring iPhone and iPod Touch.
(45 votes, average: 4.38 out of 5)
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Thank you so much, I have my iphone back!!!
Thank you – Thank you… this worked as you describe and was painless following the simple steps. well worth the $10 bucks you pay for the program for permanent use. Again, Thanks!
Dear friend,
You really helped me with your excellent instructions. I reclaimed 22 gbyte from my jail broken iphone. There is still 1.16Gbyte in “other’ Do you have any idea how I can reclaim this disk space?
Thank you for your help
Irving
You can try unchecking “Include Music Videos” in iTunes.
THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH
Now I have all my memory back!
You’re Great man !
Hi everyone !
I followed this tutorial step by step and everything looked ok,
the 2gigs of ‘other’ data were cleaned up.
But When I connected my iPhone for a second time on iTunes
I had again the 2gigs of other data.
Now I solved the problem by deleteing the installer files on installous (I have an jailbroken iPhone 3g 8gb IOS4.0)
If this doesn’t work you can also delete the files in the folder “Artwork” with DiskAid
Best you could edit the post name title Fixing “other files” eating up iPhone 3GS storage | iPod Republic to something more better for your webpage you create. I enjoyed the blog post withal.
Works, you RULE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Long Live iPod Republic!!!!!!
Great to hear that our guide was helpful
Your step by step instructions were great!! Checked out other websites but yours was clear and easy to follow and fortunately helped me solve my problem. Actually, what was filling up my “other” folder apparently was a movie I’d rented from itunes. And in the process I acquired Diskaid – it’s the greatest!! Easy to understand and use. Apple should include a program like Diskaid as part of their package – would sure make life easier for us!
It’s work…..
thanks a lot
i can use other application which is free, try find iphone explorer… it’s work….
It works! But very strangely my podcasts cannot play after they got back on the iPhone. I unchecked “sync podcasts” and synced the iPhone. After that I checked “sync podcasts” and synced the iPhone once again. Now it seems to work fine. Strangely enough, the “other” has completely disappeared!
Excellent instructions and it worked perfectly- I have reclaimed 4GB of “other” space and Other is now only 0.32GB. THANK YOU!
For me the problem occurs when I sync the iPhone and get a message that “there’s not enough room on the iPhone”. After that, the “other” will “grow” again, getting worse and worse untill I follow the instructions on this page again.
I tried this, but with no luck. When I sync after deleting all the F folders, the Other space shrinks to .37Gb for a little while which is great, but then as the sync finishes it jumps back up to 1.07Gb. I have a 16Gb 3GS so, I want that lost 1Gb in Other.
I started the next sync adding the music files back, but after 8 hours or so and still seeing the 1.07Gb in Other. I stopped it. Tried it all again, and same result. Am I being too impatient, and will that extra Other space be gone if I wait for all the music to be reloaded to the phone? Or is the Other space being used by something other than the files under the Music folder?
Thanks!
Chris
it doesnt work for me….
still 3,5G in others >_____<
Worked like a champ. exactly as advertised. Took less than 10 minutes!
Works Like a charm you rock !!!
My problem was Video though but they are stored in same area so I needed unsync music and video
Hi all,
thanx for the great suggestions in this post.
To build on what was said… I found that removing the Music folder and resyncing took part of the problem away, but I still remained with another 3GB (out if 16 of the iphone 4).
In DiskAid, if you go to Media Folder, you can right click on a folder and press “get info”.
Now I suddenly say the 3GB and by going deeper into the structure I found the 2,78GB sitting in ApplicationArchives. But the basic message is: use the GET INFO button on a directory to find out where the space is hiding. You have to decide for yourself what you can and cannot delete of course.
I deleted something called Navigon which is an app that I never fully installed.
Ciao,
Jasper
Didnt work for me
I searched my files using Diskaid and cannot find any files large enough to reflect the 4gigs in the “other”.
to Erick: It’s a lot of files so you need to follow the instructions above. Try it exactly as described and I’m sure it will work..
Jasper,
After doing this process to my 3GS on iOS 4.2.1 my “other” files completely went away.
Now, when I hook up my phone to my computer it says I have 20gb free when in reality I only have 12 or so.
Is this normal?
My phone seems to be operating normally (knocks on wood) but it just doesn’t have “other” files at all.
Jasper,
I did everything but when I hooked it up the next day the other files came back. What happened? I followed every step exactly
*to add on what I said
all of the F folders came back… idk
The problem can be related to video. If you sync the iPhone and there’s too little disk space and you get the “iPhone cannot sync because of disk space bla bla”. After that you suddenly see the “other” growing with every sync.
Basically I delete all of the F files under the music folder and then my other disappears. Then I put all my music back on and the other just comes back to what it was before.
Worked great! Thanks!
Ok, so I did All the steps in order like so many times and every time I delete All the music folders starting with F they keep cing back as if I didn’t delete them. I’ve done All the steps, deleted the folders several times, restarted my iPhone many times and yet I still have 2.5 GB hogging my phone. Please help, I’m getting desperate and very stressed out as I really really need those GB’s.
Ugh!! Like everytime I disconnect and then reconnect my iPhone the folders just keep coming back DX Dammit
Yea same thing has happened to me. I have tried several times the DiskAid and iPhone explorer programs. Followed the instructions perfectly and the “other” file hasn’t budged. I have a iPhone 3GS NOT jailbroken. All the music is off now (which is ok because I can simply re-load the music from my iTunes library. Could it be an app using the “other” file? Could emails be part of the “other” file? The F files show back up in the Music folder, but they are all empty so I guess that’s fine. Anyone else have a solution? Anyone else have ideas? Thanks.
I have a new suggestion:
I just started using an iphone app called downcastapp at downcastapp.com
It’s really really good, you can refresh and download podcasts on the iphone without the need for syncing with iTunes (you can even download with 3G if you permit it to). It can be set to automatically delete played podcasts if you like. Furthermore, the problem with the “other” file growing bigger HAS DISAPPEARED!
And – no – I’m not in any way affilliated with the downcastapp developer
This is exactly what I was looking for. Worked like a charm. Thank you!
thanks a lot !
this reduced 0.43 GB of other files to 0.18 GB
Thank you sooooo much ur awsome!!!!!!! 1.5gb to 0.5gb
Thank you so much! I performed the diskaid clean-up on my iphone 4 and it worked brilliantly! After performing a clear of cache, browsing history, and cookies under settings then safari, then performed disk aid clean up and i went from a total of 8 gigs of ‘other’ to 0.0 gigs of ‘other’!!!
I’ve done this multiple times before (at least 5) and it’s worked flawlessly every time. Today the “other” space was back as 2 GB so i tried this and it didn’t work. I have tried it 6 times again and it is still failing to yield results. I don’t know what’s wrong
Hi to all, i was really hoping that this would work. I have 7.9gb of space being taken up by this annoying “Other” file. Like many i have done the porcedure 2 or 3 times and yet with no luck. I repeat what many have said, once the “F” files deleted and once i’ve rebooted they just reappear. If anyone has a solution to help me get through this then it would be much obliged. I have an iphone 4 Jailbroken.
Found a large file under application archive; this was possibly left during last failed syc.
Got 2.6 G back now.
Thank you.
Verry helpfull information.
I SOOOOO APPRECIATE YOUR HELP ON THIS. I WAS CLOSE TO RESTORING MY IPHONE AND KNOW LATER WOULD REGRET SINCE ITS COMPLICATED AND WOULD RAISE NEW CONCERNS. THANKKKKKKSSSS A MILLION SIR
Cheers Bro, Gave me 3.2Gb back on my iPhone 4
Thank You !!
Got 2.3Gb other files. I only used DiskAid to go to the location you said and deleted all the subfolders (I didn’t unsync and sync back). Now it is reduces to 0.73Gb. I have a lot of Cydia apps, so I think that is the 0.73Gb.
Thank you very much!
I followed each and every step, as well as deleting some unused themes, cydia apps, MXtube vids, etc. And reduced it from around 3GB to 0.90 GB. Im still upset that i have this 900 MB of other memory, and i need more help on how to reduce it to the normal 0.2-0.4 GB of other memory people should have. I only have 23 MB worth of themes, which i use all the time and wouldn’t delete, I have no mxtube videos, but still, this 0.90 GB lingers around. And i don’t think the few cydia apps i’ve installed would keep my other memory 500 – 700 MB above the norm. Any ideas? Or is 0.90 GB fine for a JB’ed iTouch on 4.3.2 firmware?
I all ready posted here a while back and for some strange reason at one point it actually worked but i have spent hours in trying to reduce the same problem again. i have followed the instructions step by step several times and still can’t seem to get rid of the now 6.5 Gigs taking up my precious space.. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE some one help..
Just to add to my question. once i had deleted the f files from iTunes control when i synced my iPhone (before rebooting) for about 5 seconds the other files did actually go down by more than half and than shortly after shot back up again to 6.5.
this worked form me at first, but as I was resyncing my music, Itunes wasn’t able to sync any of it to my iphone 3g. I didn’t know what was wrong, so I tried redoing the procedures, and I noticed all the “F” files reappearing. I deleted them, but when I reboot my phone, they always come back.
just to share, deleted all contents from \var\mobile\Media\ApplicationArchives\
worked for me, contains installers/archive for all my applications.
Thank you very much, it worked for me, i use a 8GB 3GS and the other space took almost 1.5 GB, following the above steps worked, wonderful
its awesome,it worked for my Itouch, ‘others’ was already more than 2Gb…….Thanks from KZ
its just just awesome.very easy and 100% working.thanks
I did this it worked. Now my videos cant be played
Theyre on my phone but i cant play
Help!
Fantastic – Was about to do a restore to get back some space and stumbled across this….Many Thanks
THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH!!!! I went from 3.1 GB of “other” to only .48 GB of “other”!!!
The tip does not work for me. But this is obvious since I do not store any music on my iPhone. But by chance, I discovered that running Onyx on my Mac has allowed me to get some memory back.
Benoit
This helped me so much. Thank you! xo
Awesome!! Recovered 10GB of space on my iPhone 4. The issue wasn’t the music, it was 4 lengthy video files that were not displaying in the camera roll. They were in the DCIM folder on the iPhone, and with DiskAid I was able to copy them to my Macbook Pro then delete them from the iPhone. Sweet! Thanks a lot.
Perfect! Works like a charm on the iPhone 4 / IOS5.
Thanks this removed some GB, but now I cant play videos or movies! HELP
Hi im having the same problem but i rely on a unlock for my iphone 4, im using a gevey sim, and im on a 4.3.3 baseband, but if i do this process will i be able to use my unlock again? I know that restoring it will update to the newest softwarw right? HELPPP
do not upgrade do not restore. off course ur phone will stay unlocked after this process, until u upgrade it.
I’ve tried this on the iPhone 4 as well as the iPhone 4s. At first it works wonderfully, but the “other files” reappeared the next time I synced. Now when I try it I delete the “F” files and follow instructions perfectly but they reappear each time. I’ve done this multiple times and have no idea how to proceed. Anyone who has found a way to correct this please respond.
Thanks
i have done all that,, but when i sync back (last step) itunes asks me to delete all my 42 apps to perform sync. i can not take that risk, being unsure that will it do the job or not. how do i get it sync without deleting my APPS and every thing.
i have jailbroken i phone 4 ver,4.0.1
I tried this four times, it still didn’t work
Are these files imbedded in itunes itself? They are reappearing after I perform the procedure with Diskaid. Thanks!
thanks a lot man..
This guy over there made my day happy! Thanks a lot!
i tried, but it came back again . isit because my other file is only 0.40 gb small ?
AWESOME!@!!! this worked a treat. I followed the steps above but it did nothing for my “other” file. it was up to 25GB!!!!!! so I just looked around in the MEDIA FOLDER and found my VOICE RECORDINGS we being held in there after I had already deleted them. the VOLA!!! 25gb down to 0!!!!! AWESOME!!!!
thank you, thank you, thank you!
Thanks! This did the trick, along with the music trick I also cleared my TomTom archive this way. That took up 1.2 GB.
No good , cannot get ride of my 4.5g Other ….
bad times
thanks buddy excellent!
Does this only work for jailbroken phones?
This is brilliant!!! I have ZERO “other” disk space.
I have a iphone 3Gs. Best solution ever.
Thank you so much!!
It worked!!! Although for me the “other” files was a 13.6 GB hd recording I had made. I saved it to my hardrive through diskaid since I suspected this was the problem. Then I went ahead and also followed the instruction and VIOLA my memory is back!! TY
This was very helpful. Unfortunately, it didn’t fix my entire problem. It took my almost 5 GB of “other” down to just over 2 GB. I then tried the same technique by unsyncing movies and music. That bumped it down a little more. I tried photos next. That didn’t help. I kept digging around in this media folder until I discovered the recordings folder was over 2 GB. I had been recording the sermons at our church since I got my new iPhone and even though I was deleting them from iTunes, they were still on my iPhone. I deleted them from this folder and that finally solved the problem.
This shows the iPhone storage system doesn’t work exactly the way it’s supposed to. Over 5 GB of my 32 GB phone were taken up with things I didn’t know were on my phone and could have never discovered without DiskAid. Thanks for this this tip!