How to clear iPhone System Data when storage is full by forcing restart.

After upgrading to iPhone 14 and migrating your data, you might notice that your system storage is full.

In this example, you can see the Other System Data is over 150GB which is extreme.

Typically this occurs during the migration, as there’s many apps and backup datasets which are used in the data transfer and can be stored in system data files. This is usually the temporary caches and other migration files which are safe to delete. Best of all, you don’t need to delete these, as these are automatically purged by the system when it completes a full restart.

How to

The easiest way to clear your system data is to force restart the iPhone.

Important – this isn’t the normal ‘swipe to turn off’ that you’d normally expect.

Instructions below are for newer iPhone models such as iPhone 8, 9, X, XS, 11, 12, 13 and 14 models.

1. Quickly press the Volume Up button
2. Quickly press the Volume Down button
3. Press and hold for at least 20 seconds the Power button.
   Wait until the Apple logo appears
   Do not ‘swipe to turn off’

Important