I updated my devices to iOS 15.3 hoping the Storage Bug issue would be resolved but unfortunately that is not the case.
After doing some careful logging, testing, re-setting different iphones, installing App by App case scenario to try to find out 'what' could be causing that 'famous' (or should we say infamous) 'Storage Bug' case, I've been able to trace tha cause to 'some' specific apps.
A bit of Background Info:
-under normal circumstances, an App will store it's 'app data' along with the app itself.
This information should be listed with the 'App' itself under the section 'Documents & Data' section in within each app.
A 'good' example of this would be the Apples own 'Music' App:
The picture in the link immediately below shows what it should look like:
For this example, 'Music' shows 12.97 GB of usage which once clicked to see the details on that category itself it is shown in the details as follows:
App Size: 15.3 MB
Documents and Data: 12.96 GB
which in this case corresponds with the ammount of music that I have downloaded to my iphone (ie. synced through itunes)
'Most' Apps behave in this fashion.
What i've found however, is that 'some' apps are having a problem in the latest iOS versions and thus, the 'Data' that normally should only be stored in the 'Documents and Data' section with each app itself is being DUPLICATED and stored TWICE:
-once in the 'Documents and Data' section with the App itself (which alone should be normal)
AND
-a second time, DUPLICATING, the size and Data in 'Other Data' (also known as System Data in iOS)
In my particular case scenario, namely within the Apps I currently use and have installed in my own devices (namely iphones), i found out that one of the apps I have installed generates this Storage Bug.
This app causing (of the apps I use) is the 'TomTom Go' for iOS App ('TomTom Go' for iOS is used for Navigation and enables users to download maps locally).
If I 'restored from backup', then after the process was completed, the huge 'Other Data' would be there as well, so I would not be able to identify 'what' was causing it... so in my case scenario, the 'only' way I was able to identify the cause --for my case scenario-- was to set up the device as a brand new device and install one app at the time and see the impact with the 'Other Data' (also known as 'System Data' in iOS).
The picture in the link below shows right after I've reset my iphone and re-set it up as a brand new device and TomTom Go for ios is just installed:
Notice that the Size of 'Documents & Data' is extremely small, only 18 KB which is normal as there are no maps downloaded.
The picture in the link shows TomTom Go for ios with Map Data downloaded (17+ GB):
App Size: 188.8 MB
Documents and Data: 17.34 GB
However the 'same' ammount found in 'Documents and Data' in the TomTom Go App would immediately increase in the same ammount also in 'Other Data' (also Known as 'System Data' in iOS)
Just in case, I'm adding a couple of pictures right after I re-set my iphone (which I've done with 3 different devices in the last few days, each has replicated the same phenomena, so it's not a 'device' issue, but different iphones 6S Plus, 8, 10, etc... all running ioS 15.3) showing the size of 'Other Data' which right after the re-set was about 1Gb
Since this post is already long as it is, I'm not including a bunch of additional information, though relevant probably even helpful to add (even more) details to this Storage Bug problem, but I rather wouldbe insterested to hear if there are out there other users that may have run more detailed analysis and if so, I would welcome those details. If there are any iOS developers out there that may have the knowledge in the changes in the recent iOS releases that may share some light into why this is happenning... I'm thinking more in lines that there have been changes in iOS implemented, to which iOS developers may know that additional commands should be added in the code of an app to cause the app(s) to 'dump' their 'cache' data from 'Other Data' (also known as 'System Data in iOS)?... again, if there are any of you out there than can share more light into this issue, I would certainly appreciate it.
Appreciate this deep dive, I've come to terms with this part of iOS having been broken for as long as I can remember, who fucking knows much free space you have. Plug it into a computer and get a completely different answer.
Thank you for the quick feedback.
As I mentioned at the end of the post, if I included all the information about the all infamous 'Storage Bug' the post would be tooo long and too boring to read through.
This situation applies to many apps... not 'only' the 'one' App I mentioned.
Other apps such as (and not limited to, listed in NO particular order), that are 'also' affected by the 'Storage Bug' issues in iOS 15.x are: Pis Sharing apps, Chat, Social Media apps, etc... even people with just their iOS Pic sync process have been having issues ... so this is NOT limited to third party developed apps, but also with even apps that apple itself has released.... other people have been having issues with way, way too many other apps to list them all.
In our household, my other half, who used to uses whatsapp, had exactly the same problem (we ditched the app, so that 'solved' that 'Bug Problem' for us.. but as I said on my original post, 'deleting' the app (and it's data') does NOT deleted all the stuff left over in the 'Other Data' side...so, you delete the app and the data AND 'Other Data' (also Known as 'System Data in iOS') will remain the same (at best, 'Other Data' will decrease slightly but never return back to what it was before.)
As I already mentioned, the 'only' way I'm able to get 'Other Data' back to a more 'normal' size was to, hard re-set the device(s) (I've replicated this phenomena on several devices now, and on each device re-set several times and tried several different options.. such as, not limited to, listed in no particular order: delete just the app and it's data (not successful recovering/reducing 'Other Data' back to what it was before), on the app itself attempting to clear it's own data (as in whatsapp, and other such apps that offer that option --even on TomTom Go for ios itself... still no success there.)
The 'only' way to get 'Other Data' back to a 'normal' size was to hard re-set and star from scratch... once I identified which app(s) were causing this phenomena, at least in our household, we ditched and switched to other apps, as much as we could... that said, for example, we still use TomTom Go... so that became an issue.
In any case, since there are too many apps out there, that generated the same issue there with the 'Other Data' increase, is that I rather have an interest to hear from an iOS programmer, and see if maybe there is a command that should be coded into the app itself to force it to 'dump' it's cache/clear the 'other storage' data that just stores and stores without stopping (in SQL for example, you can truncate a table with the Truncate command that will wipe out the entire table of it's data clean WITHOUT generating a gigantic Log... but that is in SQL... so that was my asking and thinking process, IF there is a change with the newer version in iOS that may have caused this and a well experienced iOS programmer may know the answer/solution to this issue... as so far, the developer of these apps and Apple itself have not produce a solution to this ongoing problem with the 'Other Storage' Bug that simply blows up in size without any control whatsoever (and to count that most people don't even know 'where' the size increase in 'Other Data' is coming from.. as most people will at best, reset a device and 'restore' from backup.. .since that is a one and done process ... at the end, they end up with a device with a huge 'Other Data' size and don't know where that is coming from... in my case I've been able to identify the apps that affected our household... but again, the list is long and the only common thing is that 'Other Data' just grows and never goes down (or if app and data completely deleted, then 'Other Data' might decrease, but ever so slightly and never fully go back down to what is was (see my pictures on the main post of 'Other Data' size at the beginning of the device set up... )
Look forward to hear from any programmer, if such command(s) exists (though seems that is not possible as, since iOS 14 to the latest version of iOS ... right now ios 15.3 has been an ongoing issue)
Best regards
I updated to iOS 15 a while ago and since updating I get this message that my storage is full (iPhone XS). I'm not really annoyed by that, but I also can't use WhatsApp on which I rely heavily on.
Did anyone find a fix for this issue. I've obviously tried to update to 15.1 and turning on and off my iPhone multiple times. Should I back up my iPhone and try to restore it from the backup
Videos
What the title says, and this is even after clearing more of my storage. I have 16.34 GB available out of 64 GB. Tapping the warning also results in no reaction whatsoever from the OS. This was a problem through every iOS 15 beta version I was on, and now I am on the RC version and it is still not fixed. Is a full system restore the only option? I've also submitted this in the beta feedback app during beta 3 and now again on RC.
A 'before' and 'after' comparison post iOS 15.4 Update.
Below is the 'System Data' post iOS 15.4 UPdate, after System Data grew to 5.28GB
I did a hard reset, in other words delete all data, settings everything on the iphone and re-set it up as a brand new device.
As a retult I ended up with 3.76 GB, which used to be where the iphone was prior to the iOS 15.4 update.
I did a hard reset, in other words delete all data, settings everything on the iphone and re-set it up as a brand new device.
As a retult I ended up with 3.76 GB, which used to be where the iphone was prior to the iOS 15.4 update.
iOS About: 29.17 GB Free
General - Storage: 27.2 GB Free
General - Storage - System Data: 5.28 GB
iTunes Music pending to syc: 11.87 GB (12GB)
iTunes Videos pending to syc: 3.87 GB (4GB)
iTunes PDFs pending to syc: 62.2 MB (NOT GB!)
*Pending to sync was 'data' that was NOT synchronized to the iphone prior to the iOS 15.4 update. The iphone I used for this test is my 'extra' iphone that I have for testing, thus the device has all the apps, settings but I leave it witout Music, Videos and Books and would only get that data synchronized if I need to bring that device in regular use --ie. my 'real' production device was in repairs, etc
Post Hard-Reset
Device has no data, just activated - No Data whatsoever - System Data 1.18 GB (which 'should' be normal for ioS devices running ios 15.x)
About showind 54.7 GB avaialble of storage (basically device is completly empty
iPhone Storage - showing the 1.16 GB of 'System Data' (again device just hard resett it, all data deleted, device just activated as a brand new device)
iPhone Storage - showing the 1.16 GB of 'System Data' (again device just hard resett it, all data deleted, device just activated as a brand new device)
Same Picture (as seen at the beginning of this post) Post iOS 15.4 upgrade AND post Hard Reset, all data deleted AND re-set up again with as a brand new device with exactly the same data, apps as it was prior to the hard reset re-synchronized again.
System Data: 3.76 GB back to where it was 'prior' to the iOS 15.4 upgrade
I had preiouvsly posted another phenomena in which ioS was duplicating that 'Documents and Data' section into 'System Data'... for example my Navigation APp, TomTom Go for iOS with all it's map data that I regularly used has 18GB in 'Documents and Data' with the app itself. In the past, iOS was also duplicating the same ammount into System Data as well.. again the only 'work around' that I was able to find was to, again hard reset the device and re-set it up as a brand new device. Just in case for purposes of that ordeal I'm placing a link to my previous post here in reddit as well:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ios/comments/shbbuu/ios_15x_storage_bug_case_scenario/
Bottom line: if you are seeing an increase in 'System Data' post ioS 15.4 update and it doesn't go down... you are not alone.
If you want to re-claim the space back from 'System Data' then, as seen on this post, your options are very limited as the only one that has worked for me is the hard-reset, all data deleted, re-set up the device as a brand new one (again, if a backup restore, even if a partial one is done, as documented before --see my previous post-- it won't work)
Best Regards
I am on an iPhone 14 Pro Max 256gb iOS 26.0 (23A5326a) and my phone storage is completely full. System data uses overwhelming the majority of my storage. I have already tried the double date change trick and it took 20gb and an hour later everything back and a bit more.
Well, it's time to deep search this forum, the internet and AI to solve my storage problem. Apple has completely lost the plot on storage requirements and the size of IOS.
I have an iPhone 13 Pro Max with 128 GB that's worked great until the last 6 months which have brought a host of "your storage is full" messages.
IOS needs 62GB for System data? Why?
Who is the product manager that decided it was an OK option to "offline unused apps" to solve space problems. Some apps aren't just used very much. That's all. I don't want to have to wait for a parking app to redownload to use it. It's on my phone.
Here was my fun this morning:
Get the "storage full" message when I had about 1.5GB free last night.
Go look and see that my phone is 127.61GB used
I go into Photos (taking up 6.9GB) and delete a bunch of videos and photos. Some of the videos were lengthy and, all told, deleted about 1GB of stuff.
Permanently delete those items
Check storage: 127.72GB - WTF did it go UP??
Apple's suggesetion: "You can save 11GB of space by offloading unused apps!"
Here's my suggestion Apple: Get better engineers. Reduce the size of your own apps.
I'm open to suggestions. I've already rebooted, deleted, offlined.....
It's a mess.
Bloated mess. SMH.
A 0.1 update that needs 14 GB which can’t be downloaded because the system data eats 28 GB. There’s enough space to download the update if the OS has a better storage management system instead of keeping junk forever.
An OS in 2026 that doesn’t have controls to clear cache or do it automatically is pathetic.
Insanely large app sizes with bloated document sizes are another headache. Also why does system data fill up all my free space ffs?!
So much for it just works.
Hello everyone! I know this has been asked and posted on a lot! And I mean a lot! But I was wondering if there has been any more updates or even fixes on the IOS 15 storage bug of system data taking an absurd amount of space? It’s been plaguing all of my devices since I updated! Just wondering if Apple has even acknowledged this.
My system data takes up 36.59 GBs.
I know that’s not excessive for an operating system in general, and yes, I know 128 gigs isn’t very much these days, but it still seems crazy to me that the system data is almost 1/3 of a devices storage.
I know they appear to be slowly moving iOS, iPad, OS, and macOS towards some unified multi device operating system (which would be amazing), so there is probably some foundations for that bloating the system that aren’t getting used right now…
But even with that, it just feels kind of nuts for a phone’s operating system to take up such a huge portion of the phones memory.
———
P.s., no Settings doesn’t actually show you how many gigabytes your system data is taking up. I gave a screenshot to ChatGPT that was cropped to the width of the line chart, and I had it right Python code that would use the number of pixels in the system data section divided by the total width of the chart to approximate the gigabytes taken up by system data. Prompt in the comments.
From iOS 15.4 there was a lot of people experiencing a bug with the storage and inflated system data. Just wondering if iOS 15.5 have fixed it? I am currently still on iOS 15.3.1 holding off the updates.
It just keeps growing and growing and it’s ruining everything; I literally ran out of storage and it won’t stop. No idea what even triggered it. I hate resetting everything and I don’t even have enough storage to create a WhatsApp backup for that.
Everytime I manage to clear storage from my apps IOS just takes up more storage.