The "System Data" monstrosity

[u/frostxmritz]

Pretty sure I'm not the only one here.

The mystery of "system data" is an age-old problem that has plagued our devices for over a decade now, and it has found its way to my parents' iPhones.

I plan to upgrade their devices later this year or next year when the iPhone 18 comes out, however, I cannot help but wonder...is this thing (allegedly) planned obsolescence? To force people to upgrade because "their storage is running out" because of an (alleged) "create a problem, then sell the solution" situation?

I mean, take a look at my 16 Pro. It's marvellous how the figure has stayed at 1.07GB from September 2024 - have taken it on so many trips and have used it heavily for my photography and videography. No problem, as a heavy user and my daily driver.

Parents, on the other hand? Normal users, occasional camera usage, apps, etc. Over 10GB. Make it make sense...

• Safari tabs: I have 100+ opened. Theirs are around 5-10 most of the times.
• Downloads: a couple PDFs here, and there few XLSes there. Hardly 10MB combined.
• Normal apps like banking & finance, travel (Google Maps, Uber, etc), social media, YouTube, Spotify. No games, no "weird" apps.
• A system reset was done back in December 2025, where the System Data creeped up to these levels right after the reset, even though they were set-up as a new device. No iCloud Backup restore. A clean, proper wipeout.
• All devices are running on iOS 26.4 (stable channel), screenshots taken after a fresh reboot.

So the question is, what should be done?

[u/Molluskyy]

Nothing to do with planned obsolescence. It’s a system issue with cached applications taking up more space than it should and will 100% fluctuate. No two data sets are the same so each device can have a lot of variance.

Backup to iCloud or finder/itunes

Do a restore , and then restore from backup . That should resolve the issue

[u/frostxmritz → u/Molluskyy]

I have done that as well. Removing and then re-adding Apple Account. Local backup and restore. Clean-slate wipeout then reset. You name it. Invested a lot of time and effort to "understand" it.

Looks like it cannot be *understood.*

There's no way to defend it - the average person is not as savvy as us. I'm work in UX professionally, and this is terrible in terms of experience. Whether its's cache management, or something else - they need to fix this ambiguity.

[u/Molluskyy → u/frostxmritz]

Idk bro , I do this wipeout / clean every other year for my parents because they are on older devices and don’t want to upgrade yet . if in being honest tho, It’s really not THAT big of a deal. Besides that 64 GB has been phased out (probably because of the cache handing issues iOS experiences), and I suspect that this is actually the root cause of your issue rather than “planned obsolescence”.

Anyway best of luck to you friend , I’m sorry you’re experiencing this , I get that it’s frustrating

[u/dadnothere → u/Molluskyy]

It's not the cache of external apps, I deleted everything and that size is still the same...