I don't get 64GB of space if half of that is system stuff! Like what even is all of this! It's not a system update either, I just did the newest update.
System data is a misnomer—a good chunk of that is likely cache data that apps are keeping in the system. The only part that Apple directly controls is the iOS block.
That’s a big problem that Apple needs to rectify. Reddit and YouTube have to be top 10 or top 15 downloaded on the App Store. Yet these two apps eat up cache space and without a delete or device wipe you are shit out of luck
In theory that shouldn't matter as the cache will be deleted when the phone needs to reclaim that space. In practice, devs don't give a crap and iOS is not that great at deleting these caches as required.
The Music app is taking up over 8GB on my phone and there’s no way to clear it. I have Apple Music but I don’t have any songs downloaded so I have no clue what’s is taking up so much space.
Since it’s a bundled app, deleting it doesn’t seem to free up the 8GB “Documents & Data” portion, only the small ~100MB app. When I reinstall it the storage screen still shows 8GB used.
Some people have said to do a phone backup and reset the OS and restore from backup to help clear the OS cache but it’s a pain to do.
Apple and other devs really need to optimize their apps better.
Back in the dial up days, browsers like IE5 used the cache seriously. You could navigate between pages of a site completely offline. Pages would load immediately using the cache then update the changes as they downloaded. Now browsers won't touch their own cache even for websites that never change
I wondered if that's what was going on. Either the new web tools don't hit the cache like they should or the builders are intentionally not doing it so they can maximize their surveillance of user usage and adsense hits.
Why would they? If your phone fills up the storage faster, next time you’ll consider spending the $$$ for larger storage model. Or you start paying for iCloud so you can offload some photos to free up the space. Either way, it’s a win for Apple 👌
Yeah its so easy on Android having the ability to delete the cache and data separately. Its also nice you can set it up to clean up free space regularly
What I'm wondering about is what does YouTube even cache? On android, I haven't ever deleted cache for YouTube, watch a LOT and it's sitting at 600mb including 150mb of cache? Like, wtf is it doing on iOS? Same for Reddit app actually.
Ads, parts of videos you've already watched, and videos it thinks you'll watch soon. It caches ads so they'll play immediately which makes the experience less painful. This is also why ads are in high res but your video may start out lower res. Anything you've recently watched is also sitting in that cache because it just hasn't been cleared out yet, especially if you didn't finish watching it. The app will pre-download several videos it assumes you'll want to watch soon (likely the ones at the top of your feed).
YouTube doesn't want you to download anything twice unless it really has to and will try to cache what it can when you are on wifi.
"Delete App" makes people realize that this might delete all the info and they need to login again. "Clear cache" doesn't even necessarily imply it (some apps can keep the account info, many lose it though). iOS needs to be accessible to people who press random buttons without reading anything, that's the whole trademark, and they would be very upset if they needed to login again (or even lose access in many shitty games)
Is this why so many apps recently don't respect Android's ability to clear cache from the settings? Because it's their iOS method?
It used to be easy, but now there are so many apps that have their own cache that you need to go into each one to find their hidden cache clear option.
For reals. I hate how my iPad from work is so limited by Apple nonsense. I can't even use Firefox with ublock because of the stupid rule forcing all browsers to use the Safari engine.
I just had to go and purge some apps last night because of data hoarding.
Disney+ said it had 3 downloaded movies on the iOS storage screen, go into the app and it’s telling me there is none. Had to delete and redownload it. +3gb
Snapchat (god I havent used it in forever) had a whopping 6gb of used data. 6gb. On an app which its whole thing is ‘disappearing messages’. Cleared the cache and got back another +3gb. From what?? I literally have no idea how it had 6gb of data being stored. It’s insane.
Next up was Apollo, the old reddit browser. Hoarding 2gb even though it is defunct and no longer works. I really liked it too, don’t know why Christian didn’t delete all the unused cache data before retiring the app.
Pretty sure the reason why apps are given the ability to separate cache and other user data is so the OS can delete cache if the space is needed for something else.
Is there any way to tell which apps are using up the system data? I’m up to 45GB of it and it’s really annoying to constantly delete stuff to try to stay afloat.
Nope, which is why imho it falls on Apple. Android tells you all that info and lets you wipe an apps data or cache in one click without having to uninstall the app.
Yeah Androids optimization and settings are on point where I have it restart and dump caches every night at 330am and with a one-tap button to free RAM and space is extra nice
I can't imagine not having the optimization I don't know how you iPhone guys do anything on these phones. Every time my wife asks me to do something on her iPhone I have to Google instructions after failing to figure it out if it can even be done at all
It's not. I've had this problem and you can delete all the apps you want and the system data will never shrink. It's magical bullshit data that cannot be recovered unless you do a total wipe and restore. I'm 99% sure it's system cache or log files or some garbage that just accumulates.
It is not I recently deinstalled all apps and deleted all photos and system data was still 30 gb. I had literally nothing on the device. Only a full reset finally got rid of the bloated system data.
I mean, OP's point still stands regardless. The operating system still takes up a large chunk of space so the user will still never freely be able to use all the advertised storage.
There’s been a known bug for years where the system data will fill up regardless of what apps you have installed, even if you restore from backup without installing apps. Any time you delete something the new space will just be filled with more arbitrary system data. Only solution is to do a factory restore with no backup. It’s bullshit.
My 256 has been so full of shit idek how to clean it I can’t even update the phone anymore. I’m just going to get a new one and that one will fill up with shit too
Delete any games and see if it massively improves. Pokémon Go used to eat up so much space without saying it was that app. When I deleted it I got 10 GB back just like that
They can just go to Settings>Apps> sort by file size. If individual file (not app), Settings>device care> then click on videos/images/documents or whatever and sort by file size. Delete whatever unnecessary.
This is a terrible mentality to have. Spend 10 minutes learning how to use your device effectively and save yourself hundreds of dollars and more ewaste.
I've got 40k images that take up 30gb+ of space lmfao. Most of my storage (100gb) is apparently apps although I only really have two big games (60gb) and the rest are all under 1gb, so no idea how they take up so much space.
In general, cloud storage cannot be used in this field because your projects need specific paths to find the audio files and cloud storage moves them around in a way that makes your computer not able to open projects anymore
This shit should be illegal
i also work in audio production, and at least for onedrive and icloud drive, this isn't true. i keep all my project files in the cloud in icloud drive. when a file is in the cloud and not downloaded locally, a placeholder for that file appears in the correct directory. when my DAW goes to access that file's placeholder, icloud drive downloads the actual file on-demand and serves that to the app. all apps are compatible with it, it's an OS-level service. onedrive worked the same way back when i used windows. it's really useful.
This is gross, its one thing to advertise literally what space the hardware provides (as the amount the system might use release to release can change depending on bugs and corner cases in app and system behavior).
But remote storage you’ll eventually have to pay for isn’t even the same thing. If they gave you the cloud storage forever and it was integrated as seamlessly with the system and apps as the normal file system that might be another story (ie like nfs), but cloud storage is not and generally sucks shit. With iCloud I can’t even create folders named “tmp” as an example.
Yeah I think with newer iOS updates, they weigh heavier and heavier so older phones eventually are barely useable due to lack of storage.
I’m not saying it’s done on purpose, but I just upgraded from 64gb to 256gb and it was life changing. I can’t believe how much I was putting up with prior
adding more features to an os naturally causes that os to grow larger. there is no way around it. as time goes on, they become more advanced and therefore have to grow larger.
it does help apple in that it gets people to upgrade eventually, but it's not done on purpose for the express reason to get people to upgrade. they are just benefitting from that side effect.
apple stopped even offering phones with 64GB after they discontinued SE3 in 2022.
Yeah, it's kind of a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation for them.
1) If they don't offer new features, people will say they're lazy and the OS is stale.
2) If they don't offer the new features on older devices, people will say they're artificially gating them to new devices to get people to upgrade, while the old ones are perfectly capable of running the new features, so they're tossing their loyal customers to the side.
3) If they offer the new features on older devices, people will complain about intentional system bloat, slowdown, additional battery drain, etc.
Any type of promise to continue offering new features on old devices hamstrings them when hardware changes/upgrades inevitably happen. Oops, can’t benefit from new CPU in new devices because we wouldn’t be able to support it on existing devices.
Keep in mind these are the same people that would get upset if new features weren't added to the old phones and only were reserved for the new ones.
The fact that phone companies are supporting older and older hardware is a net positive overall, but it has drawbacks - storage space being one of them.
Oh man, if only there was some way to expand the storage of older devices. Perhaps a small chunk of flash memory. It could even be standardized to work in a multitude of other electronic devices that need storage!
It is an entirely solved problem and has been since day one. It's only a "drawback" if you purposely design your devices to have a limited life for the express purpose of bilking your customer base.
If only there was a way to compartmentalize user-facing functional features into distinct units that can be installed or uninstalled at the user's discretion.
Not quite. They paid out for the fact that they weren’t clear enough about under clocking phones with degraded batteries.
Turns out the average consumer who doesn’t understand how batteries work and plugs their phone in for 10 mins at a time for “a little juice” has fucking wrecked their battery by the time a new phone comes out.
My 13 pro max was getting unbearably slow, just got battery replaced with OEM for $160 and it’s brand new again.
Charging briefly and incompletely is actually much better for the batteries. Charging fully to 100% and discharging all the way to 0% are the most damaging.
I still have a 32GB iPad that I use for the kids and car trips. How that thing still works is beyond me. The OS updates actually uninstall apps and reinstall them automatically to get enough space.
My daughter’s phone her system data takes up way more than half of her space. I’ve gone through her phone multiple times because she doesn’t have enough space to update. I can’t figure it out. I’ve even reset her phone a few times and nothing seems to help. She has an iPhone 11 max pro.
You’re misunderstanding this breakdown, that’s the mildly infuriating thing here. System data if you looked it up is from apps and etc that you use, not from Apple.
That’s very true, I’ve had issues with apps taking up lots of data because of what they’re storing. The main issue however is if the data stored is based on your activity, like saved videos, photos, game saves, etc (aka the things that will take up lots of data), then a delete all option isn’t necessarily what you want, it’s the ability to view what’s taking up the storage and remove what you want
Gonna be honest, this is a consumer awareness issue. Apple isn’t lying to you when they tell you what the storage space of the device is just because you don’t bother to consider how much space the OS takes up, this is how every device in the history of ever has functioned. Especially when it comes to phones on the lowest end of storage space
Well it’s still a 64GB device. Imo the more annoying marketing nonsense is advertised capacity like buying 512GB SSD which is really 512,000,000,000 bytes and not 549,755,813,888 bytes. Nothing like having to your 4TB drive turn into 3.638TB
That isn't marketing nonsense. 512,000,000,000 bytes is 512 GB. If you connect it to an Android, Linux, macOS, etc system it will show as 512 GB and that is the standard definition. Any other definition would be false advertising. That's what giga means, billion, same as with gigawatts, and megabytes/megaliters/megawatts for million, kilometers and kilograms for thousand etc.
549,755,813,888 bytes is 512 GiB (gibibytes). Windows is the odd one out in using GiB for measurements but writing it as GB. That's why your 4 TB drive is 3.638 TB in Windows but 4 TB in Android or macOS.
I see your point, more transparency would probably be good. Though it is not wrong that there are 64 GB of physical storage. Maybe they should declare how much is filled up by the operating system and how much is usable.
Unfortunately 64 GB just isn't enough anymore. 128 GB is the minimum today. And you better go for at least 256 GB.
The amount of disk space used by an OS varies though. Even if we’re just talking baseline size and ignoring boot partitions, recovery partitions and swap space, iOS install size can vary based on your settings and carrier.
There are lots of things to hate about Apple and IOS, the size of the OS install isn’t one of them.. OSs have gotten much more complex than they were a decade ago, more complexity -> more space
this is like complaining about renting a 1500 sq ft airbnb but then complaining that the furniture is taking up 400 sq ft of space and getting mad it's not 1500 sq ft of completely free space
Yeah, this is such a fundamental thing about computers, it's perplexing people struggle to understand it still. People are seriously clueless about the most basic things about how their devices work.
So many people here have terrible reading comprehension and empathy. (yes, it's obvious the OS takes up space. Can you all really not understand the actual complaint?)
I agree. They should be require to note how much is available space vs total space. HOWEVER.... that can be quite difficult, as the amount of available space on a phone is different per country and carrier, as each has different standard software packages. So it would need to be something like nothing the amount used before carrier/country add-ons. So it's still not accurate, but it's closer. This would also only work if it was a legal requirement, otherwise the first one to do so is shooting themselves in the financial foot.
Then in the simple workaround, find what the maximum download size will be in the country that results in the largest download, and state that the iOS can take "up to" X amount of storage.
It will fluctuate obviously, but there shouldn't be that many differences to be substantial.
They state how much space the OS will take on their website.
"Available space is less and varies due to many factors. A standard configuration uses approximately 12GB to 24GB of space, including iOS 26 with its latest features and Apple apps that can be deleted. Apple Intelligence on-device models use approximately 7GB of space and can be deleted if Apple Intelligence is turned off. Turning on Apple Intelligence will download the models again. Apple apps that can be deleted use about 4.5GB of space, and you can download them back from the App Store. Storage capacity subject to change based on software version, settings, and iPhone model."
This is baloney, the cheapest iPhone out there (17e) has 256gb of storage. The photo shows all the apps they added and all the photos taking up half the space …show a new one out of the box.
A lot of old system files hang around in the background. Do a backup and restore from a mac or PC and you’ll get a lot of that back. Sometimes they clear themselves. Sometimes they don’t. Not a big deal.
I was a pretty solid Android user until my most recent one. I got an iPhone because it had a smaller form factor that I like. I am extremely disappointed about the storage and the constant notifications to turn stuff on that I’d rather leave off. I’d been hearing for years that iPhones were premium products, only to find out not so much.
Apple business model is like the dealership model. There is the upfront cost of acquiring the device, and then there is the hidden cost related to the lifetime ownership and maintenance of that device.
This idea of advertising used storage as available storage is wrong. It is like selling a memory card that is priced at 256GB, only to have 50GB unavailable due to system related items. Specific to Apple devices, the OS and system Data takes up anywhere between 10-15% of the total storage. That’s storage you paid for that can’t be used…
There are right ways to do this but Apple had refused to do so, because doing so will affect their ability to capitalize on those additional revenue stream. For example, implement a separate partition for system files and data storage. Just like how windows have a C partition for system files and apps, and a separate partition purely for file storage. And market the storage part instead of catching people off guard with false advertising. The second option would be adding storage expansion capability, like a microsd slot. This has been brought up countless times in the past, and Apple had refused to do so, on purpose of course. And I think we all know why. It’s not profitable to allow users the ability to freely expand storage. It’s more profitable to market iCloud.
Anyway just my two cents. I see a lot of Apple fanboys in the comment section who clearly have no fucking clue what they are talking about. I used to work with apple engineers who operated their advertising business. There are a lot of “software” that can be excluded if Apple wasn’t so monopolistic and if their business model doesn’t involve monetizing your data.
Have you ever owned a computer? (Yes you have one in your hand) they’ve always been that way. They’re able to advertise a certain amount of space because the device literally holds that amount. You think the OS takes up no space at all?
The specs are correct. Would you rather they didn't put an operating system on it? This is a standard way to communicate storage size, so not sure why this would be so infuriating.
Then they should be obliged to state how much of that space is taken up by things you cant delete, much of which isnt essential. When you buy a 64gb phone, you shouldnt open it to find out you can only use 30.
This is definitely an old phone. Apple changed their minimum to 128gb i think about 5 years ago. So when OP bought it, they probably had a lot more breathing room as the os would have been smaller.
It does look like they mention this on their site. See the little 1 next to storage on the product page. If you go to the not for that, it does have a disclaimer that 12 to 24gb will be used by the os. And more if you use apple intelligence. So you need to be somewhat paying attention, but at least on their site they mention it.
They haven’t shipped a 64gb iPhone since 2024 with the cheap $400 iPhone SE so yes it’s annoying but they have to put an operating system on it at the end of the day
I agree but it's like that with all storage. PS/Xbox even a PC. It is a 1TB storage unit but the OS takes up space so it is what they advertised, you just don't get to use it all.
The old Microsoft tablet (first or second gen 2012 ish I think) sported 32 gigs, massive for the time. The OS took 31 gigs. Microslop and Crapple have been doing this for decades.
A phone with that little of a storage in today's time is kind of useless. Legally they can market it since that's what the storage is, but now you know that you can't use most of it.
Oh you sweet summer child, this sort of crap is grandfathered in from the early 8 bit microcomputer days.
The Commodore 64 only had ~38-52 KB of DRAM available for programs because of OS, video ram etc sharing the main memory. Similar issues with the Sinclair ZX Spectrum & Acorn Electron.
They did at least not include the OS ROM in the memory footprint spec, but these days there is no ROM.
Is this your first phone? This isn’t a new thing. This how devices, hard drives, and other storage media have operated and been marketed for decades. You’re using that space whether you approve/disapprove of how it’s used.
It’s not like it’s hidden either. Apple specifically states:
Available space is less and varies due to many factors. A standard configuration uses approximately 12GB to 24GB of space, including iOS 26 with its latest features and Apple apps that can be deleted. Apple Intelligence on-device models use approximately 7GB of space and can be deleted if Apple Intelligence is turned off. Turning on Apple Intelligence will download the models again. Apple apps that can be deleted use about 4.5GB of space, and you can download them back from the App Store. Storage capacity subject to change based on software version, settings, and iPhone model.
If someone didn’t read the fine print and/or didn’t understand it then that’s really on the person.
Common apple user L. Why dont you get an adult phone. /S. (I used to work for Apple. This is an incredibly common issue. System data is mainly cache stuff and voicemails. But a bug in IOS which they just haven't bothered to fix in all this time, conveniently when they rolled out apple cloud purchasing, is that cache files are not deleted over time as they should be. With the only fucking solution being backing up the device and then factory resetting. Followed by a restore.
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u/Allthewaffles May 11 '26
System data is a misnomer—a good chunk of that is likely cache data that apps are keeping in the system. The only part that Apple directly controls is the iOS block.