What Is “System Data” Storage on an iPhone or iPad?

Are you running out of space on your iOS device? What if I told you that you actually have a large amount of space on your device that you can clear to free up storage? Don’t worry; I won’t ask you to delete apps or videos permanently. Instead, you’ll need to clear the System Data to free up some space on your iOS device.

What Is System Data in iPhone or iPad Storage?

Before I explain what System Data storage is, you should first check how much storage it’s actually taking up on your iOS device. To do this, open the Settings app and go to General > iPhone Storage.

At the bottom of the iPhone Storage screen, you’ll see the System Data option and the amount of data it’s using. You’ll also see the iOS option, which includes data related to the operating system and other stuff needed for the device to work properly.

Earlier, System Data was called “Other” data, but Apple renamed it to clarify what it represents. System Data is the total amount of cached data stored on your iPhone or iPad. This data is a combination of each app’s downloaded data, your Safari browser cache, the Mail app’s cache, downloaded emails and attachments, Safari Reading List pages, notes, voice memos, and backup files.

Essentially, it’s a catch-all term for temporary storage used by the operating system.

How to Free Up System Data on Your iPhone or iPad Storage

You can’t completely erase System Data on your iPhone or iPad, but you can reduce its size by following these methods.

Clear Safari History

The first thing you should do is clear your Safari cache data. To do this, open the Settings app, then go to Safari > Clear History and Website Data. Then, select the “All History” option and turn on the “Close All Tabs” toggle. Be aware that you might have to log in to websites again after deleting your history, so make sure you have your important passwords saved. Tap “Clear History.”

Force Restart Your iOS Device

Force restarting your iOS device can help clear out a significant amount of System Data. To do this, press the volume up and down buttons. Then, press and hold the “Side” button until the Apple logo appears on the screen. Your iOS device will now force restart. After restarting, check the difference in System Data.

Reinstall Apps

Unlike Android, you don’t have the direct option to clear cache data for individual apps on iOS devices. Because of this, apps installed on your device accumulate cache data that isn’t always necessary. The only way to remove this unwanted data is to reinstall the applications.

You can delete an app under Settings > General > iPhone Storage or by tapping and holding an app’s icon, then tapping “Remove App” followed by “Delete App.”

Reinstall the applications (by finding them in the App Store) and then check the difference in the System Data. You should focus on major apps like Instagram and YouTube, which tend to build up a lot of cache data from the content you’ve watched on those platforms.

Change the Messages App Settings

By default, the Messages app on your iOS device keeps all the messages you’ve received forever. This means a message you got two years ago is still on your phone. While a single message is tiny, thousands of them can take up a huge chunk of your device’s storage. That’s why you should set up the Messages app to automatically delete messages you’ve sent or received after a certain number of days. This will help free up space.

Open the Settings app, go to Messages > Keep Messages, and then select the “1 Year” option. After that, any message you received over a year ago will be automatically deleted from your phone.

Enable ProRes in the Camera App

If you have an iPhone Pro model, you can enable the ProRes feature in the Camera app to free up some System Data. To do this, open the Camera app and swipe to the video tab. Then, tap on the “ProRes” option at the top, and you’ll see a Freeing Resources message appear.

Once it’s done, you’ll notice that the System Data size has been reduced. What actually happens is that the ProRes feature requires a large amount of storage to record, and to make sure it has enough space, your iPhone automatically clears unnecessary data from the System Data. You can repeat this process multiple times until your iPhone runs out of unnecessary data in System Data.

Back Up and Restore Your iOS Device

While the above methods will help you reduce the System Data storage, you might still not see a big difference. This could be because the System Data contains corrupted cached files that can’t be cleared using those methods. In this case, the only option is to erase everything on your device and start over.

In a worst-case scenario, restoring your device from a backup might bring back the system data you were trying to erase. If this happens, you might want to erase your device’s data and not restore a backup; just set up your device from scratch. Data stored online, like your email, won’t be affected, so you can recover most of your important data after doing this.

Having 8 to 10GB of System Data is completely normal, and nothing to worry about. But if it’s taking up a decent percentage of your total storage, like 20-25GB, then you should try the methods mentioned above to shrink it down.

Keep in mind that these methods won’t permanently reduce the size of the System Data. It is the iPhone’s cache of temporary files, and its size will naturally increase and decrease as you use your iOS device. It’s one of the many reasons you should buy as much iPhone storage as you can afford.