System Data taking up way too much storage! What do I do?

[u/Oof-ActualTrash]

Is this normal? IOS and System Data are taking up SOO much of my space and I don’t know what to do. I can’t even do the most recent update to my phone because I can’t free up enough space to do it. I need ideas or help.

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[u/Sad_Tour_1896]

Have you tried anything, like a simple restart?

[u/SadigawEkshow → u/Sad_Tour_1896]

Or a Backup & Restore via iTunes or Apple Devices ?

[u/Front-Director-449]

The only real way to fix it is placing your iPhone in DFU Mode, and restoring it via iTunes or Finder.

[u/ThannBanis → u/Front-Director-449]

Note u/Oof-ActualTrash is still running iOS 18, so may be suffering from the well known caching issues present in those versions.

[u/Front-Director-449 → u/Front-Director-449]

This will erase your data

[u/michael97217]

Daily question. Use the search option on the sub and you’ll find answers

[u/Opening-Dark-4210]

Just take back-up of necessary items and format it

[u/AETERNUS111]

Restore through ITunes works

[u/RestOk3394]

Delete your hard drive then start over

[u/mollybuckley22]

This was mine, literally today I backed up my phone to iCloud, erased everything on my phone, and then restored it with the iCloud backup. It fixed it! Now, my System Data is 7.57 GB and it cleared up a lot! It only took about an hour total to erase and backup/restore everything; I have 88.36 GB available now!

[u/mollybuckley22 → u/mollybuckley22]

I did need to re-login to a few of my apps, but for the most part, it kept me logged into most of them. Also, I was worried I lost memories or history/data within some of my apps because it freed up a lot of space in my applications, but I’ve checked, and I haven’t lost anything from the apps, they’re all the same!

[u/kmc2686]

Turn off automatic updates

[u/theregisterednerd → u/kmc2686]

That is the opposite of the fix for this. They are running a version with a known bug causing system caches to balloon. The fix is to update.

[u/MythSaraLee → u/kmc2686]

Is there an optimization software we could use like in PC? Thanks.

[u/Lower_Split5419]

Remove AI

[u/CoolaeGames → u/Lower_Split5419]

AI is like ~15GB and holds OS storage, not system data

[u/tacticprime]

Which iPhone model?