How do I delete the "other" catagory in ipad?

My son's ipad is out of storage to the point it's useless. I noticed theres like 15gb of "other" stored in this ipad, plus Icloud storage is taking up 6.5gb (thought icloud storage was IN THE CLOUD?)....how do I delete this so he can use his ipad correctly.

 

Oh, and another thing. There is 6.5gb of Icloud drive storage on his ipad, I don't have icloud drive turned on, and I cannot find this in his ipad anywhere. Apple is ticking me off royally lately.

 

Log into icloud.com and verify what's being stored remotely. If you have icloud turned off, it should be low to nothing.

Check SETTINGS->USER->iCLOUD->MANAGE STORAGE and see what's being stored in icloud as reported by your son's ipad and compare it to icloud.

Also make sure to check SETTINGS->USER->iCLOUD->MANAGE STORAGE->iCLOUD BACKUP to see if backup is on. Apple has really streamlined the backup process. Core system settings, personal settings, chains, etc... are stored, but apps are re-downloaded when restoring.

An old school trick to clear up space (I'm sure Apple finally fixed it though) was to toggle icloud backup off, reboot then toggle it back on. Apple used to keep multiple backups on the phone/in the cloud. Turning it off deleted them all. Now Apple uses a proper incremental backup procedure I'm pretty sure.

Check SETTINGS->GENERAL->iPAD STORAGE to see how much everything is using individually and which apps are rotting and not being used by taking up space.

Depending on the files, if you have icloud turned off, iOS will use internal storage as a local icloud for functionality. The way iOS is designed, the data designated for icloud (outside of most user generated/downloaded media) just doesn't disappear. It is storage locally.

My daughter's phone ran out of space with 16GB and it reached a point, even when 5GB icloud turned on, there was no offloading, shoehorning, or streamlining apps that would create more space. I ended up upgrading her to a new iphone 11 with 128GB. Now her ipad is suffering the same fate with 32GB. I've optimized it as much as possible but she just has too much stuff on there she doesn't want to delete.

 

@electrosoft, I have icloud drive disabled since we use onedrive. I cannot even find the backups in his ipad anymore. Same thing is happening with my son's ipad. Full of crap from apple that will not delete. No more crapple garbage in this household, I am done with them. Spent thousands on it and stuff thats 1/4 the price is easier to use and works better.

 

Yeah, "SYSTEM" and "OTHER" you can't delete. Those are Apple controlled storage. I'm sure you did this already, but also make sure to clear your Safari history.

And I tell people all the time, but iOS is just another OS and prone to bloat, leaks and bugs. Sometimes a proper reset/restore clears up problems that persist (especially after major updates) along with bloat. I treat Windows the exact same way except with much more frequent clean installs.

I use a 2017 12.9" ipad Pro and Apple just refreshed their ipad pro 12.9 to 2020 (I skipped 2018). My ipad is slowly giving up the ghost (touch issues, stagelight left side, WiFi overheating/stalling). There's a good chance I'll be moving back to a Surface Pro 7 10th gen i7 sooner than later.

 

Funny thing, I never have to re install windows. I can delete stuff needed to go in order to gain space on devices that need it. I have had to do more to the supposedly "superior" OS than I ever did with windows. Now, as I said, my son's ipad is rendered pretty well useless. Apple is a load of crap and smoke and mirrors. their marketing is 100 percent lies "it just works"? that is the biggest FARCE ever. The last time I had to re install windows because of an issue was windows ME. Think about that.

 

Sometimes you have to sync with itunes to remove log files. Unfortunately other than that, you will have to do a full wipe and NOT restore from back up (that will bring the crap from "other" along with it). Its super annoying, I hate how bloated "other" becomes on my iphone and I have no way of manually clearing it out. I'm convinced apple does this purposefully.

 

my friend has an iPhone 6 Plus. There is a notification in Settings that there is a software update, when I click on it to update, it says that she needs at least 6GB of Space but her 128GB is 95% filled up and she doesn't want to delete her photos so what can she do? What the heck is this?

 

You can offload apps. You can also log into itunes.com with your mac or pc and backup all her photos locally (or backup enough) and delete them to clear space. She can pick and choose which multimedia files she wants to keep on her phone and which ones she is willing to archive/store elsewhere.

 

Or she can throw it in the garbage and buy an android phone with better specs for half the price and keep expanding storage