Apple iPhone Tip: How To Delete ‘Other’ Data And Free Up Storage Space

The storage space on any iPhone is easily filled with photos, videos, music and other things. It's so easy to fill up that sometimes, users will be surprised to know that their Apple handset doesn't have space for that unexpected selfie with a long-lost friend, that impromptu jam session with the band, that spontaneous video of the baby's first steps, and so on. Everybody knows how irritating this is.

Sometimes, however, it's not the photos, videos or music that fills an iPhone's storage space up. It's the things that are considered “Other” data. What's this and how can users get more storage space on their iPhone?

What are “Other” data?

IPhone users who navigate to Settings > General > iPhone Storage will be shown a breakdown of the things that currently occupy the storage space on their handsets, iPhoneHacks noted. These include, as mentioned, Audio such as songs and audio podcasts; Video such as movies and music videos; as well as Photos featured in Camera Roll, Photo Library and Photo Stream.

Beneath these, and other important space-consuming things like Apps and Documents, are “Other” files – Settings, System data, Siri voices and cached files. These fill up an iPhone's storage space faster than most users know, especially if their handset has small storage configuration (like a 64GB iPhone).

Delete “Other” data

Deleting the files and data considered as “Other” data will help free up storage space for the more important things. Here's how:

• Clear Cache

First, users can clear the cache of frequently used apps, particularly those that regularly sync across devices and platforms. These apps include Google Drive, Spotify, YouTube Music, DropBox and so on.

• Clear Safari

Those who browse on Safari often will need to clear the browsing app's cache to free up some space. Doing this will mean deleting browsing history, cookies and other related data.

• Offload Apps

Apps that are seldom or even rarely used can be offloaded to save up on storage space. Offloaded apps will not be deleted, but will require more data as they will need to acquire data from the App Store so they can work.

• Delete Old iMessage Archives

Those who share photos and videos with family and friends via iMessage should also try to delete old iMessage conversations, particularly those with a lot of media shared between them. Deleting such conversations will help free up space on the iPhone.