iPad My son's iPad is filling up "other" every two months. Any ideas?

[Steve Adams]

My son has a 5th gen iPad 16gb and every 2 months or so it's filling up the "other" storage area. It has 14 gb of "other" right now and it's making his ipad unusable because it keeps giving him no storage left messages. I have restored to new 2 times already but after 2 months it's back to full. I have a 128gb iPad 6th gen I use constantly and I only have like 3 or 4 gb of "other". Does anyone have any ideas what could be causing this or how I can fix it?

 

[James Godfrey]

The only thing I know of that can fix it is restoring your iPad to factory then setting up as new and reinstalling everything.

However, I regularly have between 8gb and 14gb of other storage on my iPhone, and it fluctuates regularly.

I think it’s to do with the OS getting more and more bloated with features, which sort of explains why iPads storage keeps increasing year on year...

 

[KittyKatta]

I think it’s to do with the OS getting more and more bloated with features, which sort of explains why iPads storage keeps increasing year on year...

iPad (2010-2017) - 16GB
iPad (2017-2021) - 32GB

I wish storage would keep increasing year over year. But for many then base storage (mixed with OS bloat and the hidden files of the “Other” folder) has been one of the biggest reasons people upgrade a perfectly good iPad.

 

[AutomaticApple]

My son has a 5th gen iPad 16gb and every 2 months or so it's filling up the "other" storage area. It has 14 gb of "other" right now and it's making his ipad unusable because it keeps giving him no storage left messages. I have restored to new 2 times already but after 2 months it's back to full. I have a 128gb iPad 6th gen I use constantly and I only have like 3 or 4 gb of "other". Does anyone have any ideas what could be causing this or how I can fix it?

I would recommend wiping the iPad every so often. Make sure to do backups though!

 

[James Godfrey]

iPad (2010-2017) - 16GB
iPad (2017-2021) - 32GB

I wish storage would keep increasing year over year. But for many then base storage (mixed with OS bloat and the hidden files of the “Other” folder) has been one of the biggest reasons people upgrade a perfectly good iPad.

Yeah Apple are clever in making people opt for larger storage the base is exactly that... the bare minimum you need to run the iPad with a few apps installed etc...

Quite a bit of other can come from streaming movies etc... I have found, if I use YouTube on my phone quite a bit the other cache fills quite quickly.

 

[annk]

It might be worthwhile to have your son log out of his Apple ID then back in again. Maybe power off the iPad before logging in again.

I do this when my iPad suddenly decides there's no longer enough room for something. I read somewhere that it has to do with space that gets eaten up temporarily when I stream content. Works for me.

 

[Steve Adams]

It might be worthwhile to have your son log out of his Apple ID then back in again. Maybe power off the iPad before logging in again.

I do this when my iPad suddenly decides there's no longer enough room for something. I read somewhere that it has to do with space that gets eaten up temporarily when I stream content. Works for me.

We will try that.

 

[muzzy996]

Your son’s usage patterns differ from yours. Something that he does/uses caches data that fills up storage, whether it is streaming or gaming etc. Taking a deeper look at the applications that he uses most and seeing if data can be cleared for them might help but it isn’t easy. There was a recent thread where a user complained about the difficulty of figuring out exactly what takes up space in this "other" category. The thread unfortunately went sour but I can sympathize with the challenge people face with this issue. If it were me I would ask my son to name the top 10 most used apps and I would uninstall them and reinstall them to see if things clear up (after ensuring that the ipad is backed up of course, personally I have iCloud backups).

 

[orbital~debris]

I have the same problem on my iPad mini. I frequently use the (manual) option to offload apps, but the 'Storage Full' message recurs. I had not considered the problem could be caches for streaming video apps (which I use often).

I had wondered if the problem somehow related to iCloud Photos even though I have it set to 'Optimise Storage' – thinking perhaps it wasn't managing to do this very well, or was failing to delete content to ensure enough remained un-used. My next step is to turn off iCloud Photos.

 

[rui no onna]

iPad (2010-2017) - 16GB
iPad (2017-2021) - 32GB

Not exactly.

iPad (2010-2016) - 16GB
iPad (2017-2021) - 32GB

A 16GB 5th gen doesn't actually exist. Last 9.7" iPads with 16GB base storage are the Air and Air 2.

One trick I've used to clear Other is to try to install a large game (Hearthstone). It won't install due to not enough space but it usually frees up a few hundred MB to a couple GB space.

 

[Steve Adams]

Might be 32gb then. I will check after.

 

[akash.nu]

 

[HDFan]

My son has a 5th gen iPad 16gb and every 2 months or so it's filling up the "other" storage area. It has 14 gb of "other" right now and it's making his ipad unusable because it keeps giving him no storage left messages.

What version of IpadOS is he using? There was a fix for "other" issues in one of the later IOS releases.

 

[Steve Adams]

What version of IpadOS is he using? There was a fix for "other" issues in one of the later IOS releases.

14.4

 

[Steve Adams]

Nothing new in there, but thanks anyways. Pretty well the only thing to do is flatten it and start again. doing this every 2 months.....junk.

 

[ericwn]

I would recommend wiping the iPad every so often. Make sure to do backups though!

Same thoughts here. Not sure there’s more one could try.

 

[akash.nu]

Nothing new in there, but thanks anyways. Pretty well the only thing to do is flatten it and start again. doing this every 2 months.....junk.

This is actually pretty unusual. You should really try and find out your son’s usage pattern and which apps are storing / caching the data. 16GB of others storage every 2 months is definitely not something we experience regularly.

 

[Steve Adams]

This is actually pretty unusual. You should really try and find out your son’s usage pattern and which apps are storing / caching the data. 16GB of others storage every 2 months is definitely not something we experience regularly.

Me either. Really, all he uses in minecraft and youtube. He occaisonally uses the web browser. The other thing is apple arcade. But really that's it. I wish I didn't have to flatten his ipad every 2 months. It's a 32gb btw, not a 16gb.

 

[muzzy996]

My guess is it's YouTube's cached data. I literally just tested that on my iPad Pro. I'm a heavy Youtube user, my Other category showed 19GB of space used in the storage summary in Settings. I scrolled down the list of applications in Storage and it said that Youtube was using about 233mb of space. I deleted the app anyway and sure enough, the Other category dropped by 13GB for me instantly.

I probably should have tried to offload the app first or go into the app's settings and see if it was auto downloading content but I didn't.

In any event, deleting Youtube app and reinstalling is easier than a full wipe - so I recommend trying that next time.

 

[Steve Adams]

My guess is it's YouTube's cached data. I literally just tested that on my iPad Pro. I'm a heavy Youtube user, my Other category showed 19GB of space used in the storage summary in Settings. I scrolled down the list of applications in Storage and it said that Youtube was using about 233mb of space. I deleted the app anyway and sure enough, the Other category dropped by 13GB for me instantly.

I probably should have tried to offload the app first or go into the app's settings and see if it was auto downloading content but I didn't.

In any event, deleting Youtube app and reinstalling is easier than a full wipe - so I recommend trying that next time.

I will try that, I have not wiped it yet.

 

[Precursor]

My son has a 5th gen iPad 16gb and every 2 months or so it's filling up the "other" storage area. It has 14 gb of "other" right now and it's making his ipad unusable because it keeps giving him no storage left messages. I have restored to new 2 times already but after 2 months it's back to full. I have a 128gb iPad 6th gen I use constantly and I only have like 3 or 4 gb of "other". Does anyone have any ideas what could be causing this or how I can fix it?

Hidden porn

 

[Steve Adams]

Hidden porn

AHHHH no.

 

[ericwn]

Could it be additional downloaded content from Minecraft?

 

[Steve Adams]

I will check that out too.