If you’re running out of space on your iPhone, you don’t have to delete your photos or app data for good. Here’s how to do iOS work with more space. iPhone owners with smaller-capacity smartphones often have to fight a constant battle to ensure enough storage space for their data or install a new app.
Even though it’s not as big of a problem as it was a few years ago, because cloud storage services are easier to use and usually have more space, it’s still a problem for some users. This is especially true for people who have older iPhone models passed down from family members who have upgraded to newer models.
You can’t choose how much storage space you have, so you must do what you have. Part of the problem is that not everybody requires to delete their photos or videos because they don’t want to lose any precious memories. In the same way, not everyone wants to delete applications from their phone or tablet to make room for a new one.
How much are you left with?
If you want to see an overview of your storage problems, it’s easy to do so on your iPhone. If you go to Settings and click on General, then iPhone Storage, you will find a number that tells you how much space has been used.
Below is a bar that proves how much storage is being used by Apps, Media, iOS, Photos, and System Data, broken up into these groups. It doesn’t provide you with many details, but it gives you a general idea of whether you have too many apps or if something else is taking up space.
The operating system will also suggest more things, like removing apps you don’t use, which we’ll discuss later. If you require a more precise breakdown of how much space your device takes up, you could connect it to your Mac and open Finder, or if you have Windows, you could look at the iPhone in iTunes.
The same bar at the bottom of the cover shows a general breakdown of what’s in your storage. You can see more information when you move your mouse over each section. More importantly, it shows you how much space each category takes up.
The iCloud and Photos
If connecting to the internet isn’t a problem, using it to solve your photo problem could be one way to do it. Apple’s iCloud is a good place to start because it gives you 5GB of free storage space. Even though it’s small, this could be used to store some photos, but you might want to get more. Apple’s options aren’t too expensive.
iCloud+ costs $0.99 per fortnight for 50GB, $2.99 for 200GB, and $9.99 for 2TB when used on its own. If you have a family, it makes more sense to pay for storage because you can share it with others. If you already pay for Apple services like Apple Music or Apple TV+, you might want to get Apple One to save a little money and get cloud storage.
The $14.95 Individual plan comes with 50GB of iCloud storage. The $19.95 Family plan has 200GB of iCloud storage, and the $29.95 Premier plan bumps the storage to $9.99. You could also look at other cloud-based storage services, like Google Photos, which lets you store up to 15GB of photos for free.
If you have Amazon Prime, you could also make use of the fact that Amazon Photos lets you store as many photos as you want. With how Apple’s products work together, iCloud is most likely the best choice, but your experience may differ.
You can set Photos in iOS to store your photos on iCloud if you want to. Using iCloud Photos is helpful in more ways than just storing your photos and videos. For example, your photos and videos can be viewed on other devices linked to the same Apple ID.
How to set your iPhone to save photos to iCloud and free up space
- Open Settings.
- Scroll down and then tap Photos.
- Tap the switch with iCloud Photos to turn it on.
- To choose it, tap Optimize iPhone Storage.
If you turn on these two settings, your iPhone will automatically send photos to iCloud, as long as you have enough space. When you choose the Optimize option, your device will replace full-resolution images with smaller versions that work much better with your iPhone. Full-resolution originals are safe on iCloud and may be redownloaded anytime.
Offloading and Apps
If you have too many apps, the obvious thing to do is to get rid of some of them. But doing so could delete any data that goes along with it. Not files the user made and saved on purpose, but things like caches. That might not seem like a big deal, but you can always redownload apps you bought from the App Store so that it could be.
Some of the deleted data could be saved game files, settings you set up, or, more importantly, the information you put into the app. There is a less harmful way, and it’s called offloading. Instead of deleting everything that has to do with an app, offloading will delete the app but keep any specific data to the user.
It enables you to redownload the app because the icon stays on the Home Screen. It creates it easier to get back to where you were. When you tap the app’s icon, it will download and install itself again.
You can delete apps from iOS by hand if you know which ones to get rid of, but you could also just let iOS decide. If you turn on the automatic option, apps won’t be deleted immediately. Instead, iOS will only delete apps when it’s almost out of space. It will also work based on which apps you don’t use. The apps you use the least will be deleted first.
How to enable Offload Unused Apps on an iOS device
- Open Settings.
- Tap General.
- Click on iPhone Storage.
- Tap Enable next to Offload Apps Not Being Used.
The choice will also show you how much space you could get back right away by deleting apps that iOS thinks you don’t use much.