Removing the “Other” from my iPhone storage…

Yesterday, I got the black screen of death on my iPhone. That lovely “Connect to iTunes” image usually does not mean the data is salvageable. I had just backed up my photos, and I was looking at the fact that 1/5 of my phone seemed to be used up by “other.” I removed apps, I checked for stored videos, stored emails, internet cache. That’s when the phone went black. I was resigned to have to reset the entire thing. I had been having strange issues, which was why I was trying to figure out what “other” was filling my phone. I tried restoring the iPhone twice, but it stalled out both times. I noticed, though, that 7.1.2 had been released. I’m guessing it was what caused my phone to flutter in the first place.  But, somehow, after unplugging and replugging in the phone three times, the data all returned.  Yet, it still had 1/5 devoted to “other.”

I had a revelation today when I received a voicemail message from my mother. I looked, and I had over 100 stored messages, going back years. Why I hadn’t deleted them, I don’t know. I went through the delete process, but they still remained in a deleted items folder. So, the “other” was still filling my phone. I had to do one more step of clearing the deleted messages completely.  After all of this digging, much of the “other” was these undeleted messages.

Cult of Mac explains the steps really well in this article: Four Ways to Clear Your VoiceMail in iOS 7.

 

What have you found that hogs the memory of your phone or mobile device? How did you fix the issue?