What is the "other" shown in the iPhone capacity bar?

[monkeysrock0622]

Sorry if there was already a thread for this. I was just doing a sync and I had some videos and when I synced the phone there were no videos on it and there was about 2.55 gbs of "other" instead of video....can anyone tell me how to fix this problem? Thanks

 

[asuandy]

Sorry if there was already a thread for this. I was just doing a sync and I had some videos and when I synced the phone there were no videos on it and there was about 2.55 gbs of "other" instead of video....can anyone tell me how to fix this problem? Thanks

I think "other" is Contacts, iCal stuff, and cover art

 

[princess_80854]

I believe it includes email attachments as well.

 

[gcvt]

And the OS, right?

 

[xSoNiCcRaCkErSx]

No, this is caused by disconnecting the iPhone prematurely before you pressed the disconnect button on the computer. SOLUTION: The only way you can solve it is by restoring it. Remember never remove the iPhone from the plug before its PROPERLY disconnected and says its okay to unplug it. Calenders and contacts wouldn't take up 2.55 gbs anyways.

 

[Martlet]

Not sure you need to restore to remove the "Other" for every case.

I noticed 300mb of "Other" after a sync once (I sync several times a day, and don't pay much attention to the capacity bar normally).

I just resynced and it went away (I think it was actually supposed to be "Music" but was showing as other the first time I synced... I had just changed some playlists around and had synced about 300mb of new music to it).

It may just be that "Other" is anything new you just sent to the iPhone, and that it places it in the proper category the next time you sync.

So before you go do a full restore, eject the iPhone, remove it from the dock, dock it again, and sync again. If multiple syncs don't clean up the "Other" category, then do a restore. But trying the sync first might save you some time.

 

[brinky]

I had this after trying to do a mod to add some custom ringtones. The mod didn't go so well and I ended up having to do a restore. Not really big deal, just a huge pain in the arse.

 

[Thatguy]

And the OS, right?

If I am noy mistaken, the OS space is simply deducted from the 4 or 8 gigs, so the "capacity" in iTunes ends up being about 3.3 or 7.3 gigs

 

[iHuman]

You don't need to restore, as I also had this problem. I sometimes have an issue with iTunes recognizing the iPhone, and it pops up with the "other" thing a few times. I simply ejected it and plugged it back in. If that doesn't work, restart iTunes, that should take care of it.

 

[Brandon!]

I would imagine since iTunes syncs everything on the phone every time you connect it, the problem should resolve itself... right? 2.55GB is quite a big of space though.

 

[adseguy]

If I am noy mistaken, the OS space is simply deducted from the 4 or 8 gigs, so the "capacity" in iTunes ends up being about 3.3 or 7.3 gigs

No that's because like all Drives these are measured in Gigabits and not Gigabytes. I really don't want to get into why, but 1024bits is actually 1 kilobyte so that small deviation actually makes 8Gigabits seem like 8Gigabytes, but it's not...it's more like 7.3.

I have had the "other" problem, but not to that extent....it seems to just come and go and at most be 100 or 200 MB , then go away.

 

[Martlet]

More like 7.81 GB.

8 * 1000 / 1024 ~= 7.81

Subtract around 500MB for Mac OS, and you get the 7.3GB available.

 

[RchGrav]

More like 7.81 GB.

8 * 1000 / 1024 ~= 7.81

Subtract around 500MB for Mac OS, and you get the 7.3GB available.

Actually you're wrong...

The OS is 180MB.. Much smaller than most think.

Apple says in the specs that it is counting a gigabyte as 1 billion bytes, so thusly it would be like this

(There is 1024 bytes in a Kilobyte, 1024 Kilobytes in a Megabyte, and 1024 Megabytes in a Gigabyte.)

8 * 1000000000 / (1024*1024*1024) = 7.45 GB

Subtract around 180MB for iPhone OS and you will get the 7.27GB free space...

but you have the basic priniciple, good try.

 

[lancpa]

When syncing my phone it says I have 3.12gigs of "other". What is this and how can I remove it. I went as far as removing my music, pics, podcasts, but it did not effect it. I noticed when I first synced the only thing that it had in the capacity was this 2.12 gigs of "other" and nothing else until the sync was complete.
"Other" seems to be taking up a lot of space

 

[impaler]

When syncing my phone it says I have 3.12gigs of "other". What is this and how can I remove it. I went as far as removing my music, pics, podcasts, but it did not effect it. I noticed when I first synced the only thing that it had in the capacity was this 2.12 gigs of "other" and nothing else until the sync was complete.
"Other" seems to be taking up a lot of space

I could be wrong...but it might be operating system and applications that perhaps can't (or I guess I should say "shouldn't") be removed.

 

[Jetprop]

When syncing my phone it says I have 3.12gigs of "other". What is this and how can I remove it. I went as far as removing my music, pics, podcasts, but it did not effect it. I noticed when I first synced the only thing that it had in the capacity was this 2.12 gigs of "other" and nothing else until the sync was complete.
"Other" seems to be taking up a lot of space

I had the same problem with 2.16 GB of "other" even after I had removed all music, photos, videos, etc. Didn't seem to be any way to get rid of it, so I did a restore via iTunes. That did the trick. My "other" is now 12.8 MB and I am now reloading my music. Fortunately, the restore does not wipe out contacts and calendar entries, but it does wipe out all e-mail. For info, I have a Windows Vista computer and am using Outlook 2007 as my contact and calendar database.

 

[Jetprop]

Well, I think that is the issue. My "other" was also a sliver when I first got the iPhone. But after I experimented with loading and removing some music, videos, podcasts, etc. The "other" was now over 60% of the total memory. That's not internal software, but is probably a fault in the way the iPhone memory is configured. The fact that a total restore brings "other" back to a small value indicates that it is a memory configuration problem. If I have the time and the inclination I'll call the Apple support folks and see if they have an answer and will report back.

 

[spyrwebs]

i believe thats the data for text, email, bookmarks, and cache. It gives i false reading when you disconnect your iPhone before it finishes syncing or other reasons. If deleting the data dosent work then only a restore would help you.

 

[mike3141]

I noticed when I first loaded some DVD-ripped videos onto my iPhone that they weren't accounted for in the "video" bar but show up as "other". I went back and changed the file type to "m4v" instead of "mp4" and resync'd and then the files went into the "video" usage and the "other" dropped back to a small amount.

 

[lancpa]

All Fixed! After talking to Apple support and a restore it is back to normal. Apple said they have had some problems with this and they are looking into it. He was not sure how it happens but the phone may be copying files that are already on the phone. I thought it was weird when I added up my audio, video and photos it had the same gigs(3.12) as the "other" category.
I was very pleased with Apples support they were all very professional and willing to answer off topic questions(especially when it was restoring, it takes a while and I didn't like the dead air). I think Apple engineering keeps the techs in the dark. They can't give you an answer if they don't know what it is. (ie updates, new phones, changes, etc......) I bet when the techs get to the restore part of the process they roll there eyes and say here we go again with the same questions I can't give anwswers too.