The newest iPhones come with 128GB base storage. But, given that our phones are almost as powerful as mid-range PCs, this isn’t actually a lot of storage. The average laptop has around 500GB, and even then people complain that this isn’t enough either. We take and browse our photos and media predominantly on our phones, so we need to make sure we always have storage.
For this reason, we need to know what to do when our phone is out of storage. Click here for more information on how to clear iPhone storage.
Check the storage
Before you jump into deleting entire apps and photos, we need to see how much storage is left and what is actually hogging all of the space. Head to Settings, General, then iPhone Storage. Here, you will find a color-coded infographic detailing how much storage is left and what is taking up all of the space. If photos seem to have the biggest bar, then we know to focus on managing these better.
If it’s apps that seem to be high, then we can scroll down to see exactly which apps specifically are taking up this space. If there’s one app, in particular, using up to say 10 GB, we could either delete the app, temporarily Offload it, or delete some files associated with it (for example, Spotify’s downloaded offline songs are a common culprit, which is easy to undo when we head into the Spotify app). Deleting offline content should also be done with Netflix and other media consumption apps like Youtube.
A really fast way to do this and delete the cache is to simply delete the app and then immediately reinstall it. This will start again and potentially clear up many GBs of data for some apps.
Photo Library
Phones are what we use to take pictures, and as phones get better and more megapixels are used, more storage is also used. We need to head into Photos are remove things like duplicate photos, accidental pictures, blurry pictures, screenshots of email confirmations that we no longer need, and large videos.
Some dedicated software can help with this, or we can go through and do it manually.
Browser cache
Whilst cache is useful for keeping your data usage down, over time the cache can become redundant and problematic. Clearing it now and then is ideal and can free up some space. Head to Settings, click on Safari, and choose Clear History and Website Data. This will clear cache, but if you use Chrome, then head to the Chrome app itself, click Options then Settings, tap Privacy, and finally click on Clear Browsing Data.
Final Word
Staying on top of your storage should be an ongoing process – not a once-a-year activity. This way, it will never build up to be too messy. There are also other methods to clearing out data of course, such as deleting attachments in messages. Ultimately, it’s useful to utilize the cloud storage and change to any efficiency settings as possible as this will help passively keep storage usage down. For example, under Camera Settings, it’s possible to turn on High-Efficiency Mode which can help reduce the file size of future pictures.