If you’re anything like me, you have decades worth of memories on your iPhone. All those photos, videos, and texts, along with your entire app library, can take up a lot of space. Fortunately, there are several ways to increase your iPhone’s storage capacity, from downloading apps to uploading essentials to the cloud.
The best way to save on local storage is to invest in cloud storage service like Apple’s iCloud, Google driving, Box or Dropbox to download some of your files. But there are also certain settings you can change to make sure you’re fully utilizing your iPhone’s storage capacity. With last year’s iOS 16 update, your iPhone also gained the ability to detect duplicate photos, making it easier to keep your photo library neat and organized.
Learn more about how to free up storage space on your iPhone below.
First, take a look at what’s taking up the most space on your iPhone
To maximize your iPhone storage, you need to know what it takes up your device in the first place. See what’s taking up your storage space so you know where to start. Run it settingstouch In general and scroll down to iPhone storage. Select this option to see a breakdown of the types of files and media that are taking up space on your iPhone. Apple it can also make some recommendations on how to free up space, such as reviewing the videos stored on your device as shown below.
See what’s taking up your iPhone’s storage in the settings menu.
Check if your iPhone is optimizing photo storage
Photos are among the biggest offenders when it comes to gobbling up space on your iPhone, but iPhone settings menu has an option that allows your device to save smaller photo files locally if your device doesn’t have enough space, instead of the original versions. These full resolution photos and videos are stored in iCloud, and you can download them if necessary. To make sure this feature is turned on, start by opening it settings application Then scroll down to Photos and make sure there is a blue check mark next to it Optimize iPhone storage option.
Make sure your iPhone is as efficient as possible when it comes to storing media files.
Save photos and videos to a cloud service instead of your device
The best way to free up space on your iPhone is to remove files you don’t need to store on your device, but that doesn’t mean you have to reduce your photo library. Instead, try storing them in third party cloud storage service like Google Photos, not on your device. It’s a quick way to free up a lot of storage space without having to part with old memories.
Before you delete anything, make sure the photos you want to save are backed up or transferred Google Photos. If your photos and videos are not backed up to another service like Google Photos, Dropbox, Box or OneDrive before they are deleted, they will be permanently deleted. This one guide guides you through how to copy your entire iCloud photo library to Google Photos, but please note that the unlimited free storage option is no longer available.
You might wonder why you need to use a separate cloud service if your photos are already stored in iCloud; deleting your photos from your iPhone also deletes them from iCloud, so you’ll want to use a different service if you plan to delete images from your device.
More from the Apple event
You can try saving photos to a cloud storage app like Google Photos.
Delete apps you no longer use
Another great way to clean up your iPhone is to get rid of it applications no longer use. If you don’t know where to start, take a look at which apps you haven’t used in a while. Open yours iPhone settings menu, tap In general and go to iPhone storage. You’ll see a list of your apps along with how much space each app takes up and the last time you used it. Scroll through the list and try deleting apps you haven’t used in a while.
Get rid of apps you haven’t used in a long time. In the iPhone settings menu, you can see the last time you used a certain application.
Get rid of apps you don’t use all the time
If you don’t want to completely delete the application, you can unload it instead. Switching allows you to keep the documents and data associated with that app so you can reinstall it at any time and quickly pick up where you left off. Return to the above list by opening it settingsby pressing In general and choosing iPhone storage. Tap any app in the list and select Unloading the application. You can also set your own iPhone to do it automatically by opening it settingstouching Application store possibility and assurance Uninstall unused apps the switch is on.
You can download apps you don’t use often instead of deleting them.
Automatic deletion of old messages
It’s not just iPhone photos, videos and apps that can clog up your device’s storage; getting rid of old ones text messages may also be helpful. You can set your iPhone to automatically erase yours message history by opening settingschoosing Messages and tapping on Save the messages option under Message history. From there, choose whether you want your iPhone to keep text messages for 30 days, a year, or forever.
Stop saving text messages indefinitely by changing this setting on your iPhone.
Delete videos and music from apps
You probably have videos and music, music stored offline in multiple apps on your phone, and luckily, there’s an easy way to find those files and delete them. Run it settingschoose In general and select iPhone storage. Look for the app from which you downloaded the offline content, such as Netflix. You will then see information about the app’s storage, such as its size and buttons to delete or remove it.
If you downloaded offline videos, you’ll also see a section for this content below the Delete App button. Place your finger on the downloaded video and slide it all the way to the left side of the screen to delete it.
There’s an easy way to delete the videos and music files you’ve saved within the app to free up space on your iPhone.
Clear your web browser cache
You can always try to clean yours web browser cache if you’re really in a hurry for space, although deleting apps and media will make a much bigger difference. But you could get yours by doing so iPhone a little speedup when browsing the web, so it’s worth a try if you’re low on storage space and your browser is running slow. But remember that it will log you out of the websites you have logged into.
Open settingschoose Safari and tap Clear history and website data.
Clear your Safari cache to see a performance boost and save some space.
If you use google chrome, tap the three dots at the bottom of the screen, select History and tap Clear browsing data. You should see a check mark next to three categories: Search history, Cookies, website data and Cached images and files. If you want to delete only the browsing data for a certain period of time, tap Time range option at the top of the screen before pressing Clear browsing data at the bottom.
You can also easily clear Google Chrome’s cache within the app.
Looking for more iPhone tips? Check out our favorite iOS 17 features and our iPhone 15 upgrade guide.