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Causes for sudden decrease in storage?

A

acousticbiker

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 28, 2008
982
199
I have a 16GB 6S and suddenly got an alert today that I'm almost out of storage. I checked and I'm at less than 100MB remaining.

- Just days before, I was at 2+ GB remaining and I don't remember doing anything that would have dramatically taken up storage
- I don't have any videos or photos on my device (except Photostream, which has always been there)
- I checked Settings>General>Storage>Manage and don't see anything with more than about 200 MB except 1GB for Photostream
- When I plug into iTunes, I think the biggest difference seems to be under 'Documents and Data' (significantly larger) and maybe 'Other' to a lesser degree

Would appreciate any help/tips - thanks!
 
acousticbiker said:
I have a 16GB 6S and suddenly got an alert today that I'm almost out of storage. I checked and I'm at less than 100MB remaining.

- Just days before, I was at 2+ GB remaining and I don't remember doing anything that would have dramatically taken up storage
- I don't have any videos or photos on my device (except Photostream, which has always been there)
- I checked Settings>General>Storage>Manage and don't see anything with more than about 200 MB except 1GB for Photostream
- When I plug into iTunes, I think the biggest difference seems to be under 'Documents and Data' (significantly larger) and maybe 'Other' to a lesser degree

Would appreciate any help/tips - thanks!
Click to expand...

I'm going to guess and say the low storage warning you saw was for iCloud and not your local storage. check your iCloud storage space.
 
Try restarting the device. Sometimes that will free up space if there is a lot of junk being cached by iOS. Documents & Data and Other is typically cached information from apps. If you are using FaceBook, Instagram or SnapChat, they are all notorious for saving unneeded cache. You can use Battery Doctor to delete app cache, or delete the app and reinstall it.
 
Thanks for everyone's thoughts:

Armen said:
I'm going to guess and say the low storage warning you saw was for iCloud and not your local storage. check your iCloud storage space
Click to expand...

Good guess, as I've been there before but iCloud is fine (2+GB remaining there)

Mlrollin91 said:
Try restarting the device. Sometimes that will free up space if there is a lot of junk being cached by iOS. Documents & Data and Other is typically cached information from apps. If you are using FaceBook, Instagram or SnapChat, they are all notorious for saving unneeded cache. You can use Battery Doctor to delete app cache, or delete the app and reinstall it.
Click to expand...

I've tried restarting without success but not Battery Doctor. In any case, wouldn't the cache be reflected when I check by app in Settings>General>Storage>Manage? No app is showing as more than 200MB there

numberfour said:
Are you using apple music?
Click to expand...

Nope
 
So I tried Battery Doctor (I think I just barely had enough space to download it!). Got 200MB freed up from the 'Clean Up Cache' function.

Does anyone know what 'Memory Boost' does? Couldn't find a great answer via quick Google search and would appreciate any background info before I try it
 
acousticbiker said:
I've tried restarting without success but not Battery Doctor. In any case, wouldn't the cache be reflected when I check by app in Settings>General>Storage>Manage? No app is showing as more than 200MB there
Click to expand...

System cache can also be cleared by Battery Doctor. Occasionally when running battery doctor it will clear out 500-600MB of data that wasn't accounted in "Storage".
 
Mlrollin91 said:
System cache can also be cleared by Battery Doctor. Occasionally when running battery doctor it will clear out 500-600MB of data that wasn't accounted in "Storage".
Click to expand...

Thanks for the tip! I got about 200MB out of it. Memory Boost didn't do anything I could see.

I also checked Safari caches is pretty small and deleted/reinstalled Facebook without any effect.

Anyone else have any other tips or success from their own experience on this? I know things accumulate over time, but it caught my attention when 2GB got consumed all of a sudden.
 
acousticbiker said:
Thanks for the tip! I got about 200MB out of it. Memory Boost didn't do anything I could see.

I also checked Safari caches is pretty small and deleted/reinstalled Facebook without any effect.

Anyone else have any other tips or success from their own experience on this? I know things accumulate over time, but it caught my attention when 2GB got consumed all of a sudden.
Click to expand...
Do you stream music or video through iTunes?
 
Mlrollin91 said:
Then I'm at a loss. When you stream iTunes it usually caches in the background and does not show up as storage, only docs/data and other. Sorry I couldn't be more help.
Click to expand...
No worries, thanks for thinking through all those options!
 
Logging out of iTunes/Appstore and then back in cleared 3GB for me this morning
 
Do people think a delete and restore from iCloud backup could take care of the excess Documents & Data and Other?
 
A restore will clear the cached data for sure. I do it every now and then when the other gets too massive (5gb+)
 
saudor said:
A restore will clear the cached data for sure. I do it every now and then when the other gets too massive (5gb+)
Click to expand...

Thanks. Just want to be clear what you mean: do you mean deleting and reinstalling from scratch or restoring from an iCloud backup?
 
acousticbiker said:
Thanks. Just want to be clear what you mean: do you mean deleting and reinstalling from scratch or restoring from an iCloud backup?
Click to expand...

If you know how to manually put together stuff from a backup (I.e. Through ibackupbot), that would yield the best results but not really worth the trouble. A normal restore from iCloud backup should be good.

Ideally you want to re-load iOS first and restore from your iCloud backup (but this is slow since all your media/apps also need to get re-synced)
 
Looks like you have become victim to that dreaded cache bug which has been plaguing iOS for quite some time now.
 
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