System Storage Full

It is November 2020, and my Iphone 6s has just been reset to factory settings because of this. So, no, we cannot assume that Apple has fixed anything in the new updates, nor will they. I've been experience a slow decay of storage space on my, already too compact, 16gb phone. 6gb taken by the storage, so this phone is actually a 9gb phone, sold as a 16gb phone. Over the past 2 months my phone went from the occasional offloading of an app, to having almost 0gb of space. I was so confused, as apple does little to nothing to explain to their customers how to handle the defuncts in the system. I started using icloud, uploading everything possible to it. It did absolutely nothing, nothing at all. You have to go through absurd hoops and hurdles to export your iphone photo library into your computer and separate them from icloud, so that they won't disappear when you delete them off your phone. Learned that lesson before, should out to apple iCloud for losing 500-1000 of my pictures to iCloud in 2018. So, everything's on the cloud, and I take a photo, go to look at it... It doesn't load. No photos load, nothing loads, and I realize I have offloaded every app possible on my phone. I know, should have noticed, but I'm not a huge lover of these devices. I use my phones camera, call, and text daily - that's really it. So, everything is up in the cloud and somehow I can't use my phone at all. I check my storage: 6.4gb used by "storage" and 8.14gb used by "other" ...No other information, just "other" That leaves me with a 1.4gb phone, Apple. That is, frankly, unacceptable.

Now, on the advice of the professionals here, we were told to back our phones up to the most recent available back up. So, I Plugged my phone in. My only backup available is from March... What? How can that even be possible? I don't know what I will lose but I have a 1gb phone so, whats there really to lose. It just finished backing up, and guess what? I am the proud owner of a .87gb iPhone 6s! In hindsight, of course none of us should be backing up our phones after we JUST experienced a colossal failure from backing up our phones. I can promise you, I've never been more ready to leave the cloud for my SD card. I will never, ever, back up my phone again. My photos will never go into a cloud, and I will never have to deal with catastrophic apple failure again.

My phone just finished resetting itself. If I don't come back, it is because the phone is wiped clean and it works. If I come back... Well. Let's just not imagine the worst. Good luck everyone, and for your safety, memories, and livelihood: DO NOT BACK UP YOUR PHONE. Pull everything you need off of it, and erase it. Never look back, it is the only way.

I've tried erasing apps pics and videos. doing new updates and etc. one thing I did find to help was the settings-general safari- then clear history and website details. it saved me about 2/3gb

What I did that drained some of it, was take a charging usb and connect my iphone to my computer. It takes a while, but it works! I also restarted my phone every now and then

I fixed it by signing out the iCloud account. Go to setting, click your account name, and in the Apple ID page, click sign out. Once your are completely signed out, go back to the account and click sign in. The Other storage is restored from over 30GB to normal after sign in.

It's been 3 years and Apple hasn't given us fix...and it's been 3 iOS releases with still no fix. I have tried everything I can find and did a full erase/reinstall twice. It will show fixed going from 30GB down to 6 or so after reinstall and within an hour it's back up to full. How annoying there is no posted solution from Apple.

I have been struggling with a basically unusable iPhone 10XR for over a year because of 80 gigs of unidentified “system” junk that I can not remove despite constant daily battles and I am at my wits end. Plz fix this?! Omg?!

My 11 pro with 64 gb is also facing this problem. I ve had it a while ago and deleted some items and it didnt came back..... Until today! After reboot it will drain to 30 gb less! and after maximum 30 minutes its full again.. I'm getting sick of it. Did install the last update but didn't help. Please help someone..

This is the same problem to all of us. Storage problem and battery capacity vs system performance. apple is playing with their old clients to force them buying new and new phones.

staying with apple seems like staying in prison. Only solution to quit apple.

This is the same problem to all of us. Storage problem and battery capacity vs system performance. apple is playing with their old clients to force them buying new and new phones.

staying with apple seems like staying in prison. Only solution to stop using iPhone and migrate to others.

Still an issue even on the new iPhone 13. Just got the phone and it says there is 61.57GB of system storage. Hardly have any space left.

Hi everyone,

I noticed this problem occur for me for the first time when I turned off the setting to optimise the photos on my phone for storage space. My theory is that this "System Data" is actually the photos being downloaded off iCloud and it is attempting to save them back into the camera roll, but there isn't enough space, so it never actually registers as a "Photos" in the little gauge at the top...

I'd recommend trying to turn that setting back on, if it is off at this point, and see if it helps.

In my case it is iPhone 13 pro ios 15.3 and I have systems data grown to 64 GB , loging out of I cloud , deleting history and websites settings in safari as deleting all icloud files did not help either My iphon‘s storage is reduced by half it is a scandal , re-booting doesn‘t help either, I had no iCloud-Photos bigger then 3-5GB deleted Icloud-photos did not help either and all tricks read on internet like mac-magazine and co are waste of time , do I get money back or Apple please sent me the bigger iPhone 13 pro with 256 GB so I can use 100 GB I payed for. thank you.

Hi there, I am currently using an iPhone 7 and it is giving my problems with storage as when I try to download something it tells me that my storage is full but when I Check my storage, I still have a few gigs of space

I have the same problem going on. The folder "System storage" and not "IOS" is consuming roughly 25GB and "growing". Esp when i use my phone extensively. It's a Iphone 7+ with 128GB of storage. The phone basicly has bin used since 2018 till today without any re-install or so. Once in a while i perform a backup, grab all the photo's and personal stuff off and i free space with this.

Not even a few days ago i managed to clear up quite some old video's files blabla, the free space got back to a healthy 30GB again. Now last morning that remaining free space was or is almost at it's limit. *** is going on? It started to happen when i more and more frequently update IOS to the latest version. It seems like most of these packages are more designed or suited for a newer generation of phones rather then the old ones.

When i reboot the phone, there is a difference in space consumed by that folder. First reboot, 18GB. Second reboot, 16GB. So upon a few reboots it does seem to clear it out. But we as users should be able to perform maintaince and not kick our own personal belongings such as media in order to free space because Apple is using some sort of technique to organise primarily cache and we cant clear it.

Its just stupid to have a phone consume over 9GB for IOS and a additional 25GB for "Cache" or "logs" or such. Clearing safari and such is'nt going to remove these large chunks of data consumed by "system storage". It's just stupid. I've rebooted it 3 times now, the size of that folder is within 8GB now. Most websites that provide advise on clearing storage all come to the same story. Apple needs to provide us a way to clear the cache which obviously consumes the most part of it.

I have a Iwatch as well with that, a 4GB model that is unable to update itself because the package is larger then there is on free storage. I'm 99% confident that such update packages are being downloaded and temporary being stored in that System folder. Its consuming and eating space. In order to update my iwatch i have to go through hoops which involve resetting and all that in order to get a package on that Iwatch.

i brought this to apples attention via online chat. I have a 64gb IPhoneX and conveniently with every new update apple puts out and immediately following that update, my phone suddenly spikes in storage use. I can’t even take a picture with my phone and if it allows me to even use the camera, it’s moves at like 3 fps. I can’t download the new update because it tells me it requires more storage…..this issue bothers me because it seems to be done by apple, just to force their customers into updating their phones. I have screenshots showing how data and storage is being spread evenly o we apps across the board that shouldn’t be taking that much storage at all. Not even close. It’s ridiculous and I’m done after this phone with this company.