Level 1

60 points

System Data is taking up 54.91 GB on my iPhone 13 Pro with iOS 26

The issue related to gigantic "System data" occupying much of the space on an iPhone has already been discussed several times. I have made several search and read plenty of posts (but not all - too many). None of them was really useful.

I have an iPhone 13 Pro, running iOS 26. In order to update to iOS 26 I had to do the trick related to the date: move the date in the future, then bring it back to today, the "System Data" shrinks. However, it shrinks only temporarily.

Today I cannot update to iOS 26.0.1 because my iPhone has not enough free space.

I have 118.23 GB of 128GB used:

iOS corresponds to 14.48 GB
System Data corresponds to 54.91 GB !!! Almost half of the total space.

I have already removed all the apps I can - I cannot remove more.

What can possibly occupy that much space?

Is there any of you who was able to solve definitely this issue? (Not with the date trick).

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Original Title: Gigantic "System Data" on iOS 26

iPhone 13 Pro, iOS 26

Posted on Sep 30, 2025 6:49 AM

Top-ranking reply

LordThistle Author

Level 1

60 points

Posted on Sep 30, 2025 10:40 PM

I have find the time and:

made a backup
reset the iphone
reinstalled everything from the backup.

"From the outside", the phone is exactly in the same state as yesterday, only some minor issues with certain bluetooth devices and, clearly, the cards in Apple Wallet.

Now, I have:

10.77 GB of System Data (down from 54.91GB)
64.77 GB free (up from about 12 GB free)

This represents a serious and nasty bug in iOS, I have already sent feedback to Apple, but it seems to me that, with new "Feedback app", the communications to Apple get lost in an ocean of messages.

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22 replies

LD150

Level 10

99,271 points

Oct 12, 2025 2:51 PM in response to francorg

francorg wrote:

What do you mean exactly with "reinstalled everything from the backup."?

It's different from restoring from a backup saved on my MacBook?

Thanks!

No, icloud backups and Mac backups contain the same data

NetSecNW

Level 1

8 points

Nov 3, 2025 8:24 PM in response to Rcinkle

Sat here at 04:22 in the morning updating my Pro 16 to 26.1 as system data is ruining my phone. All my main apps almost uninstalled. Wife’s same phone hasn’t got the problem. Go figure. Will update after the upgrade.

JRatMain

Level 1

8 points

Nov 4, 2025 7:02 AM in response to NetSecNW

I updated a while ago, but I’ve noticed apps are offloading themselves again. I checked my storage and… it’s happening again.

It seems Apple hasn’t actually fixed the issue after all. Hopefully it does get handled soon, because this is frankly frustrating to deal with. I’d much rather not reset my phone, if possible.

Rcinkle

Level 1

32 points

Oct 3, 2025 7:07 PM in response to JRatMain

IOS updates often reset System Data. Only time will tell if it’s really “fixed” or not…

NetSecNW

Level 1

8 points

Nov 4, 2025 5:49 AM in response to LD150

I updated OTA. Had to delete a shed load of apps to create the 14Gb space needed for update. Took over and hour to update. Managed to re-install all my apps now. Bad design.

-cash

Level 1

14 points

Nov 19, 2025 11:12 PM in response to Rcinkle

The wild thing is people probably think you're overexaggerating but you're not. This is my 3rd iPhone 15 Pro Max because of this issue.

彤194

Level 1

12 points

Nov 4, 2025 4:20 AM in response to LordThistle

System Data is taking up 54.91 GB on my iPhone 13 Pro with iOS 26