New ios mismanagement of cache on iPhone 6s

szatanica

I have been using my iPhone 6s for many years now. I have recently changed my battery again so as you imagine I have it for some time now.

In the least year or two I have noticed that since I was updating iOS regularly the cache on my phone fills out in a matter of days (and Im talking about this grey “unspecified” area)! It causes my phone to be virtually unusable because I have no working space. My phone is only 16Gb and even though I dont require many apps, those few still become unusable after about 3 weeks and I have to factory reset and restore my phone from backup. This so far has been the only way to deal with this problem.

The weird thing is, I have never had this problem before, it has started only in the last year. I dont want to sound paranoid but it almost like Apple is doing this on purpose so I get the new phone, which I do not intend to do. This one still serves me well except for this issue.

Anyone here is having similar observations?

I will try to revert to factory reset without updating the iOS and see how this will help, but for now maybe someone has other thoughts you can share?

Marvin

szatanica said:

I have been using my iPhone 6s for many years now. I have recently changed my battery again so as you imagine I have it for some time now.

In the least year or two I have noticed that since I was updating iOS regularly the cache on my phone fills out in a matter of days (and Im talking about this grey “unspecified” area)! It causes my phone to be virtually unusable because I have no working space. My phone is only 16Gb and even though I dont require many apps, those few still become unusable after about 3 weeks and I have to factory reset and restore my phone from backup. This so far has been the only way to deal with this problem.

The weird thing is, I have never had this problem before, it has started only in the last year. I dont want to sound paranoid but it almost like Apple is doing this on purpose so I get the new phone, which I do not intend to do. This one still serves me well except for this issue.

Anyone here is having similar observations?

I will try to revert to factory reset without updating the iOS and see how this will help, but for now maybe someone has other thoughts you can share?

One thing that can affect storage is the iOS updates. These are downloaded in the background and each update can use up a few GB until it's installed.

Settings > General > iPhone Storage shows a breakdown of what's used. On iOS 15, iOS itself is a category and the grey at the end is called System Data, which is caches, logs and other system resources. System Data can use a few GB and isn't easy to clear out.

A reset will get rid of the caches but iOS updates that are available will be downloaded again.

I'd recommend getting a phone with more storage because 16GB is really hard to keep from running out of space.

eBay has loads of cheap refurbished models. Check the seller rating and avoid ones that have reviews about bad quality models being sent.

iPhone XR 64GB $269:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/255453227261
iPhone 6s 64GB $160:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/294362341110
iPhone 8 64GB $140:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/294362000620

szatanica

Thank you for a quick response, and the suggestions however it’s not exactly what I find helpful. I’m aware of what the “grey” area is (being system data) and that many apps thet work in the background can download stuff but I covered basically all there is to cover to battle this issue. This is why Im writing here as I run out of ideas. So nothings gets downloaded, I keep cleaning everything as much as I can o regular basis, I offload apps, I clear Safari, everything that can be done, I’m already doing.
I really searched hi and low for causes.

I am more interested in why I could have used my 6s with success for so long without this issue and now suddenly from version 13 or so this is making things so difficult…