iPhone models with higher storage capacity generally come with an expensive price tag. That is why many people choose the version with the least amount of storage to save money, but there is a problem with that.
If you are still using the same device after a couple of years, you can face storage full issues on your device. So, if your phone is running low on space, then you need to learn how you can manage storage on your iPhone.
In this article, we have shared a comprehensive guide on how to manage iPhone storage for optimal performance.
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A Step-By-Step Guide To Manage Storage On Your iPhone: Unlock The Power Of iPhone Storage Management
If you can free up space on your iPhone, it can make it run more efficiently and faster. And there are various ways to free up storage space on your device. Here we have covered a step-by-step guide on how to manage iPhone storage for maximum efficiency.
1. Checking Your iPhone Storage Usage
Before you start making any changes, the first thing that you should do is determine exactly how much memory you have used and how much space you have left. And you can easily check the status of your iPhone storage in the settings of your iPhone.
- First, you need to open the Settings app on your device and then tap General.
- After that, just go to iPhone Storage and at the top of the screen, you should see a graph that displays how much free space you have and a category-by-category breakdown of what is using up your memory or storage space. This should guide you in your next steps.
Images Source: apple.com
- Also, under the Recommendations section, you will find suggestions of what Apple recommends on how to manage iPhone storage.
2. Delete Non-essential Apps Or Unused Apps
Non-essential apps are those apps that you rarely use and without them, you would not face any problems. So, you can consider offloading or deleting those apps to manage storage on your iPhone.
Offloading an app will delete or remove the app from your phone, but it will retain all of its documents and data. So, this makes it quickly available if you ever decide to reinstall it later, because the data will still be there and you can continue using it normally.
And it can be a good option if you are planning to use the app again later. Also, it is the perfect option when the app itself is very large in size but its data takes up a small amount of space.
However, deleting an app deletes the app and all of its data and it can be a good choice if the app’s data is much larger than the app itself.
- First, you need to open the Settings app, then General, and tap on iPhone Storage.
- After that, wait for the apps to load below the graph and then scroll down to the list of apps.
- Here, below an app’s name, you should look at Last Used to find out which apps you haven’t used for a while. If it has been a while since you last used an app, then you can tap on the app to see the app’s size and how much data it is storing on your device.
Image Source: apple.com
- Finally, if you want to delete the app and all of its data, then you can tap on Delete App. However, if you just want to offload the app from your device temporarily, then you need to select Offload App.
3. Optimize Photo And Video Storage On iPhone
When it comes to optimizing and managing your photo and video storage on your iPhone, you can follow these simple steps.
- To get started, you need to go to Settings > General > iPhone Storage.
- After that, just tap on the Photos app and you will see three options in the Recommendations section – iCloud Photo Library, “Recently Deleted” Album, and Review Personal Videos. And in each of these three options, you can see how much space you can save.
Image Source: makeuseof.com
- In the first option, if you enable iCloud Photo Library, it will automatically upload all your photos into the cloud and remove them from your device. But, you can only back up to iCloud, which is not a great option when it comes to free space.
- In the second option, if you empty the “Recently Deleted” Album, it will remove all old photos from the Recently Deleted album. And it can save you a lot of space if you often delete images from your device.
- Finally, in the Review Personal Videos option, you can review your videos and check which video files are taking up the most space, so that you can consider deleting them.
4. Clear Safari’s Cache And History
Your web browser’s cache can take up a lot of space in your storage. However, you should remember that if you clear your cache, then you will be logged out of any websites that you are signed into, and also all your cookies will be deleted.
But, it can save you a lot of space in your storage and help you to manage your iPhone storage.
- First, you need to open the Settings app on your iPhone and then tap Safari.
- After that, just click on Clear History and Website Data.
Image Source: apple.com
- Finally, in the pop-up menu, you need to tap on Clear History and Data.
5. Deleting Old Messages And Attachments
Generally, messages don’t take up a lot of storage space if you don’t have a lot of texts with images attached to them. So, if you want to free up space on your iPhone, then you can manually delete messages or entire conversations.
Also, you can change the settings of your iPhone to automatically delete older messages after a certain period of time.
- First, you need to open the Settings app and then tap Messages.
- After that, just tap Keep Messages and on the next screen, you need to tap either 30 Days or 1 Year to keep the messages for that specific period of time before they are deleted.
Image Source: businessinsider.com
- Finally, you will see a pop-up asking if you want to delete those messages that are older than 30 days or one year, according to your preference. Then, you can tap Delete to get rid of those messages or Cancel to keep them.
6. Managing Contacts Storage On Your iPhone
You can also check out your contacts list to free up space on your device. It is true that each contact takes up a very little amount of space. However, your list of contacts can be huge, if you have lots of old friends or former colleagues from previous jobs in your contact list.
You can consider deleting the contacts of all those people you will never contact again or you don’t need anymore. It will not only save you storage space on your device, but you will also get a more refined, and useful contacts list.
- First, you need to turn off contact syncing for any accounts that you don’t need and it will also save you some space. You need to go to Settings, then Accounts & Passwords, and tap on the desired account.
- After that, turn off the toggle switch next to Contacts and your iPhone will delete those synced contacts.
And if you want to delete a contact that is saved locally on your device or synced via iCloud, then you use the following steps:
- Open the Contacts app on your device and tap on the contact that you want to delete.
- After that, just select Edit in the upper right corner of the screen and then scroll down and tap on Delete Contact.
Additional Tips That Can Help You To Save Storage Space On Your iPhone For Maximum Efficiency
These above-mentioned steps should help you to optimize and manage your iPhone storage. Here are some extra tips that can help you to save space on your iPhone.
- Deleting Photos And Videos From Third-Party Messaging Apps: If you use WhatsApp or other third-party messaging apps, you might receive many photos and videos and some apps even save those media files on your storage space by default.
And even if you turn off the option to save incoming media files from those apps, they can get stored within the app itself. So, you should get rid of those extra files by going to the app and deleting the media files.
- Delete Podcasts That You Don’t Need Anymore: One of the most effective ways to save space on your iPhone is by deleting podcasts that you have finished listening to or watching. And If you download video podcasts, then you will see that it consumes a lot of storage pretty quickly.
- Delete Built-In Apple Apps: With the iOS 10 update, you can now remove built-in Apple apps from the Home screen. And when you will remove any built-in app from your device, it will also remove all of its data and configuration files.
Wrap Up On How To Manage iPhone Storage: Unlocking The Secrets
The photos, music, apps, and other content that you have on your iPhone take up a lot of space in your storage. So, your device’s storage can fill up quickly, however, it depends on its storage capacity and how much content you have stored in your device.
And if you are struggling with storage space on your iPhone, then the methods that we have explained here will help you manage your storage on your iPhone more effectively to achieve better performance.
We hope that our comprehensive guide has helped you to learn how to manage iPhone storage. If you have any other tips or suggestions that work well for you, then please leave a message in the comments below.
FAQ: How To Manage iPhone Storage
For those people with iPhones that have between 8GB and 32GB of storage space, there is a good chance that they might face storage full issues on their iPhones. That is why they want to know how to manage iPhone storage. And here we have answered some related questions in the FAQ section.
Q1. How Much iCloud Storage Is Free?
Ans: When you sign up for iCloud, you will automatically get 5GB of free storage space. However, if you need more iCloud storage or want to get premium features, then you can upgrade to iCloud+.
Q2. Is Google Cloud Better Than iCloud?
Ans: If you are looking for better security and customer service, then iCloud can be the best option for you. However, if you want more storage for free and more business-oriented features, then Google Drive can be the better choice for you.
Q3. Can I Backup My iPhone To Google?
Ans: Yes, you can use Google Drive to back up your content on your iPhone and iCloud account. And photos in your device will back up to Google Photos and contacts will back up to Google Contacts.
