Confused about whats on my phone

[aj0538]

Hello,

I'm new to the Iphone so this may be a newbie question. I just synced my phone and i have 114 MB of apps and 2.62 gigs of "other" what is "other" and why is it eating up so much space? Is it the operating system or have I somehow inadvertently downloaded some stuff I don't need?

Thanks for any help on this.

AJ

[juls1585]

other would be like contacts, text messages and the basics that come on the phone

[Hawk]

Hello,

I'm new to the Iphone so this may be a newbie question. I just synced my phone and i have 114 MB of apps and 2.62 gigs of "other" what is "other" and why is it eating up so much space? Is it the operating system or have I somehow inadvertently downloaded some stuff I don't need?

Thanks for any help on this.

AJ
Generally, when "other" is that big, it's an indication that something was interrupted during a sync.
For example, if you were copying a movie onto the phone and a call came in during the sync and you answered it, that would leave space that is "bookmarked" for an area of your "hard drive", but because it didn't finish, there is no file extension to identify it and it goes to the "other" category.
I know this because I have done it a few times.

Sync your phone, make a few changes to your content, sync, and then change it back and you should be fine.

[aj0538]

Thanks for the quick response. I think that's a bunch of space being eaten up. Any suggestions on how I would cut it down?

[aj0538]

Thanks Hawk, I responded to juls1585 b4 i saw your reply. I'll try it.

[iphonewarrior]

I can smell a re-sync coming. If you still suffer this 'other' memory usage. Try and unsync all your applications. Then sync them back on and see if this clears it.

Another option would be to reboot the phone with it plugged in, iTunes will see it and sync automatically. I've found this to help when I've had issues.

[aj0538]

Tried re-syncing but that didn't work. Is there anyway to see what's stored as other?

[iphonewarrior]

Is your phone Jailbroken?
How many apps do you have?

[aj0538]

I can smell a re-sync coming. If you still suffer this 'other' memory usage. Try and unsync all your applications. Then sync them back on and see if this clears it.

Another option would be to reboot the phone with it plugged in, iTunes will see it and sync automatically. I've found this to help when I've had issues.

That's pretty much all greek to me. Is there a how to somewhere?

[aj0538]

Is your phone Jailbroken?
How many apps do you have?

Not Jailbroken.

Not that many apps. Barely 3 pages worth

[iphonewarrior]

Are some of the apps i.e games quite large?

Does your phone even sync?

[aj0538]

It says it syncs and tells me its complete. I just loaded 3 movies and they are on the phone.

[aj0538]

I have a couple of games, isniper, ac130 spectre. I just synced it and transferred 3 movies over. The "other" is still the same size.

[iphonewarrior]

Movies are different, if you look at the bar at the bottom there is specific color for video's so you can identify whats using up your memory.

[aj0538]

Movies are different, if you look at the bar at the bottom there is specific color for video's so you can identify whats using up your memory.

Ok, The bar shows 1.05 g of movies, 18.1 mb of pictures, 114.7 mb of apps and the infamous "other" at 2.63 gb. Trying to sync it again to see what happens.

[aj0538]

I looked around and it seems like this is a pretty common issue, although no on knows for sure what causes it. I deleted 3 movies directly from my phone yesterday and this seems to be one of the causes. Another cause is linked to the newest version of iTunes. I was told to try to go back to 7.5. Either way, everything points to restoring the phone. I'll try to see if there's another way or if I need to restore. I'll post the outcome when I get a chance to try it out.

[aj0538]

Allrighty then,

Restore did the trick! I tend to believe that the problem was that I deleted 3 video files directly from the phone. I wont do that again. The speculation on this is that Itunes no longer recognizes the files after they are deleted directly from the phone ergo it labels the space the files previously occupied as "other" when you attempt to perform a sync.

I'm going to go with this explanation, mostly because I'm a member of the Atari generation and the majority of this technical stuff makes me want to curl up in a ball and do my rainman impersonation, but also because the phone now works and seems to actually be a bit quicker.

Anyway, G'night everyone and thanks for the help.

[Hawk]

Allrighty then,

Restore did the trick! I tend to believe that the problem was that I deleted 3 video files directly from the phone. I wont do that again. The speculation on this is that Itunes no longer recognizes the files after they are deleted directly from the phone ergo it labels the space the files previously occupied as "other" when you attempt to perform a sync.

I'm going to go with this explanation, mostly because I'm a member of the Atari generation and the majority of this technical stuff makes me want to curl up in a ball and do my rainman impersonation, but also because the phone now works and seems to actually be a bit quicker.

Anyway, G'night everyone and thanks for the help.

I was unaware that you could delete movies directly from the phone. I would confirm that this was the problem, as it parallels what I described before.
I recently had my phone replaced due to battery issues. When I synced the new phone, my Other was over 500MB, which is about double what the old phone had. It took 4 syncs and 2 random media remove and re-adds to get it to get back down to around 200-250. Itunes was very slow to recognize the changes, which I think was your problem as well.
Glad you fixed it.

[iphonewarrior]

I was unaware that you could delete movies directly from the phone. I would confirm that this was the problem, as it parallels what I described before.
I recently had my phone replaced due to battery issues. When I synced the new phone, my Other was over 500MB, which is about double what the old phone had. It took 4 syncs and 2 random media remove and re-adds to get it to get back down to around 200-250. Itunes was very slow to recognize the changes, which I think was your problem as well.
Glad you fixed it.

I only found out a few months back that you could delete movies directly from the phone.

OP, sorry for ditichin last night, gotta sleep ;)