How to free up storage space on iPhone and iPad

If your iPhone or iPad is full, there are several things you can do to recover storage space. In this guide, we go through various options and methods available to free up storage on iOS devices. Keep reading to learn what they are.

All iPhones and iPads have a fixed storage capacity ranging from 16GB to 512GB for the iPhone and 16GB to 1TB for the iPad. While it’s always a good idea to buy a model with the largest storage you can afford, after a while even the highest storage devices can fill up, and it often happens when you least expect it.

From the music you buy and the apps you download, to the photos you take and the messages you receive, all of that content must live somewhere on your device. And when the storage on your iPhone or iPad is full, it’s not like you could increase it. What you can do, though, is free up existing storage. This is how.

Basic tips to save storage

Apple is aware that many people have difficulty managing storage on their devices, which is why it has introduced more and more tools with successive versions of iOS to help users keep up with the types of apps and media that they often eat precious megabytes.

Start the file Configuration and select General -> iPhone / iPad Storage, and the amount of storage space you used is shown in the color bar at the top. Below, you can see a list of recommendations for optimizing storage, reviewing and deleting large attachments, for example.

These recommendations are followed by a list of installed applications and the amount of storage each uses. The list also tells you when you last used each app, allowing you to easily find and delete apps that you haven’t used or haven’t used in a while.

When you delete an application, the icon, application data, and any user-generated data are deleted. It’s fine if you don’t intend to reuse the app, but Apple also allows you to download apps, which frees up storage space but leaves the app icon and user data in place. If an application you use a lot takes up a lot of space, it’s worth checking to see if you can clear any associated caches.

Another option that Apple recently added to iOS is the ability to prevent your iPhone or iPad from automatically installing software updates. It used to be that new software updates were automatically downloaded in the background and then installed using an Automatic Updates feature. However, in iOS 13.6 and later, the Settings app includes switches that let you choose whether updates are downloaded automatically.

Recover space captured by photos

Photos that you save to your iPhone or iPad naturally take up storage space on your device, which can be filled quickly depending on the available storage capacity and the amount of content you have.

If you see a message indicating that your device’s storage is full, it’s worth checking out a system option called Optimize Storage, designed to work with iCloud Photos. This feature replaces full-resolution photos on your iOS device with smaller device-sized versions that take up much less storage space, while full-resolution images remain off-device in iCloud.

Another way to prune the photo library is to check for redundant shots taken in burst mode. Burst mode refers to when the iOS device’s camera captures a series of photos quickly, at a rate of ten frames per second.

It’s a great way to shoot an action scene or an unexpected event, as you’re always more likely to end up with the image you wanted. But it also generates a lot of unwanted images, so it’s a good practice to choose the best image to keep it safe and delete the rest to save storage space.

If you have an older iPhone, you can also save space when taking photos in HDR. On the iPhone X and earlier models, when the camera takes an automatic HDR photo, you can also save the standard photo to the photo library, which is useful for comparison or when the HDR image does not come out as expected. However, if you want, you can disable this feature and save yourself some storage space.

In some cases, you may find your photo library growing even when you are not taking photos on your device. For example, media that people share with you via WhatsApp can be automatically saved to your iPhone’s camera. Fortunately, you can easily prevent this default behavior by disabling it Save to camera roll in the WhatsApp application settings.

Of course, if your photo library feels out of control, one solution is to start over and delete all the photos from your iPhone. Just make sure you’ve already backed up the ones you want to keep, and keep in mind that deleting your photos with iCloud Photo Library turned on will delete photos from ALL your devices.

Recovers space captured by videos

Some of the above photo tips apply to videos stored in the device photo library. However, there are other ways to prevent video content from eating up storage space. For example, you can customize the resolution and frame rate of the recorded video to reduce the file size Settings -> Camera -> Record Video.

Elsewhere, if you regularly download Apple Fitness + videos to your ‌iPhone‌ or ‌iPad‌, see the recommendations in Settings -> General -> iPhone Storage and you should see them in the list Check out the downloaded videos, where you can delete them individually or in bulk.

If you have an Apple TV + subscription, or have rented or purchased movies through iTunes, you can download videos using the Apple TV app to watch them offline. However, if you want to save space, make sure you have selected Quick downloads (lower quality, use less storage) a Settings -> TV -> Mobile Data – means lower quality videos, but uses less storage.

WhatsApp has an integrated media management tool that can help you massively identify, select, and delete GIFs, photos, and videos that can fill your phone.

The tool groups large files and media that have been forwarded many times, sorting the files in descending order and provides a way to preview the files before deleting them. You can also see a preview of the media content before selecting one or more files that you want to delete. To access the storage management tool, launch the application and go to Settings -> Storage and Data -> Manage Storage.

If you’re an Apple Music subscriber, you can download songs, playlists, and albums from the “Apple Music” catalog to your iPhone or iPad for offline listening, but this can gradually consume space. device storage over time.

Fortunately, the Music app includes a handy feature that can start working whenever your device’s storage space runs out and you automatically download songs that you haven’t played for a while in order to expand new ones.

To check Settings -> Music -> Optimize Storageand make sure that Optimize storage the switch is enabled. From here, you can also choose a minimum amount of storage that you want to keep for your music before you start removing downloaded songs from your device. You can also monitor storage space by disabling automatic downloads Settings -> Music and download new songs manually when needed.

Apple Music users can also delete individual tracks in the Music app. Just press and hold an item, select Delete … in the pop-up menu, then tap Remove the download when asked.

There are several ways to cut fat from the Messages app. For example, iOS can be automated to discard old messages that have been on your device for more than a specific period of time.

Also, if you touch the contact bubbles and then the button information (jo) at the top of a Message conversation, you can also see all the files that have been sent to your chat thread in an easily accessible location, where you can delete them all at once.

Messages in iCloud, as the name implies, store your iMessages on Apple’s cloud servers instead of on each of your individual devices. One of the benefits is that your messages, photos, and other attachments are stored on ‌iCloud‌, freeing up space on your devices. You can turn it on in the Settings app by tapping your Apple ID banner and selecting iCloud -> Messages.

Other Apple apps worth checking out are the Books app and the Voice Memo app. If you’re listening to a lot of audiobooks, try setting up your later catalog and reviewing any previous voice memory recordings to see if you need more.

Finalizing

We’ve gone over the top tips for saving storage for iPhone and iPad, but depending on your use case, there may be other ways to free up space on your device. For example, if you do a lot of file management on your device in the Files app, consider compressing large files and folders by selecting Compress from the context pop-up menu.

If you still have little space and have exhausted all of the above options, it may be worthwhile to resort to the “nuke” option, a clean install, wiping the device, and restarting. If that doesn’t help, it might be time to upgrade your device.

Do you have any more tips that we haven’t mentioned here? Let us know in the comments or email us.