Next, tap on Storage Usage at the bottom. Finally, you will get a listing of which chats (group or individual) are taking up the most space on your phone. As you can see, my Family group chat is eating up almost half a gigabyte of data. So is the next group chat right below that. Go to your phone’s settings, and select “Storage.” Among other things, you’ll see information on how much space is in use, a link to a tool called “Smart Storage” (more on that later), and a list. If you’re lucky enough to have a device with Android 8.0 Oreo or later, you can look in Settings Storage and simply tap the Free Up Space (or Manage Storage) button at the top.

With high-resolution photos and console-quality games, your iPhone storage fills up in no time. Even with a 128 GB model things can get out of hands fast. And if you’re using a 32 or 64 GB iPhone, chances are you’ll see that pesky “Storage Almost Full” alert much sooner.

Luckily, there are lots of things you can do to clear storage on iPhone, both manual and app-powered, so let's take a look.

What you'll need:

• Your iPhone
• A photo cleaner app Gemini Photos
• Your Mac
• A macOS cleaner app CleanMyMac X
• Internet connection

Why is my iPhone storage so full?

Your iPhone may be full of things you don’t really need. Since they take up a lot of valuable space, it’s important to find out what they actually are. Here’s how to check and manage storage on your iPhone:

1. Go to Settings > General > iPhone Storage.
2. At the top, you’ll see a color-coded bar showing how much space you have left, how much is taken up, and what's taking it up. The biggest categories are usually Photos and Apps, but that depends on your usage.
3. Below there is a list of your apps sorted by how much space they take. You can tap on each app to see how much of that space is the app itself, and how much of it is the app’s Documents and Data.

Depending on how you use your iPhone, you might have a huge and bloated Photos app, bursting with photos and videos. Or it might be games and social media apps that are hoarding the most storage. Below are five easy steps you can follow to free up storage on iPhone regardless of your iPhone use.

How to clear storage on iPhone

Chances are, there’s a lot of unneeded clutter on your iPhone. And that’s actually good news. It means you can free up a significant chunk of space without deleting the things you want to keep. Here’s how to free up storage on your iPhone, step by step:

1. Clean up your photo library
2. Clear browser cache
3. Clear app cache and other app data
4. Delete attachments in Messages
5. Delete offline content

Step 1. Clean up your photo library

If you’ve checked iPhone storage like we suggested above, you already know who the main space hogger is (looking at you, Photos). Of course, wiping your whole photo library clean is not an option, but there’s probably stuff you can get rid of:

• duplicate photos, like those you downloaded twice
• similar shots (like the five selfies you took so you can pick a good one)
• photos of whiteboards, notes, checks, and things like that
• screenshots you don’t need anymore
• large videos you don’t like

You can go through your library and weed out these photos and videos manually, but a quicker and more convenient alternative is an iPhone app like Gemini Photos. Here’s how to free up some space with it:

1. Download Gemini Photos and launch it. It will automatically start scanning your library.
2. Go to Notes, Blurred, and Screenshots. This is where you’ll see screenshots, photos of text, and other useless stuff. All photos will be pre-selected, but you can deselect the ones you still need.
3. Tap Delete All.
4. Go to Similar. Sets of similar photos will be grouped and pre-selected, with the best photo in each set remaining.
5. Review a set, select other photos if you want to, and tap Move to Trash to trash selected photos.
6. When you’re done reviewing sets of similar photos, tap Empty Trash.
7. Go through Duplicates, Videos, and Other to sort out the rest of your photo library.
8. Finally, go to the Photos app, and scroll down to Recently Deleted.
9. Tap Select, and then Delete All.

After a cleanup like this your library will shrink by a few gigabytes and become way easier to navigate.

Step 2. Clear browser cache

If you often use your iPhone to browse the web in Safari or Chrome, keep in mind that your phone may be storing caches and other data that you don’t need. And you'd be surprised how much space you can free up just by clearing your browser cache.

Here’s how to clear Safari cache:

1. Go to Settings.
2. Find Safari.
3. Choose Clear History and Website Data.

If you use Chrome, follow these steps to clear its cache:

1. Open Google Chrome on your iPhone.
2. Tap Options > Settings.
3. Scroll down and tap Privacy.
4. Tap Clear Browsing Data.
5. Choose which browsing data you want to clear (browsing history, cookies, cached images and files) and tap Clear Browsing Data.

Step 3. Clear app cache and other app data

Unlike browsers, most apps don’t give you access to their cache and other data they store, such as login data. And if you tap on each app at the top of that list in iPhone Storage, you’ll notice it has several gigabytes of so-called Documents and Data. Here’s how you clear that app data to get more iPhone storage:

1. Before you start, make sure you remember your logins to various apps or have them saved somewhere.
2. In Settings > General > iPhone Storage, tap on an app at the top of the list. This will often be a social media app like Facebook or Snapchat, a messenger, or a content app like YouTube or Spotify.
3. Tap Delete App.
4. Go to the App Store and reinstall the app.

Yup, unfortunately, this is the only way to clear cache and other app data for the majority of apps.

Step 4. Delete attachments in Messages

Texting isn’t just about text, right? You’re sending and receiving memes, GIFs, selfies, little videos of your cat falling off the couch in her sleep. All that content is stored on your iPhone even if you don’t save it to Photos, and if you text a lot it quickly adds up.

Here’s how to delete all your attachments in Messages to clear some iPhone memory:

1. Go to Settings > General > iPhone Storage.
2. Scroll down and tap on Messages.
3. You’ll see a list: Top Conversations, Photos, GIFs and Stickers, and Other. Tap on the category that occupies the most space. Keep in mind that in Top Conversations, you’ll be deleting entire threads, not just the attachments. If you don’t want to do that, stick to Photos and other content.
4. Tap Edit in the upper-right corner.
5. Mark all attachments you want to delete.
6. Tap the Trash icon.

That’s it! Space-hogging attachments are gone.

Step 5. Delete offline content

You probably consume a lot of content every day — music, videos, podcasts and what not. And if you save that content offline to be able to play it on the subway or during a long flight, you have quite a lot of leftovers piled up.

As a result, apps like YouTube, Netflix, and Spotify can take up several gigabytes of iPhone storage each. So why waste space on those Stranger Things episodes you downloaded back in 2017 and a long-forgotten playlist you never listen to anymore?

Let’s start with Netflix. Here’s how to delete Netflix movies and series you saved onto your iPhone:

1. Open the Netflix app.
2. Go to Downloads.
3. Tap on the pencil icon in the top right corner.
4. Tap on the red X to delete the video.

Next up, YouTube. To delete offline YouTube videos, follow these steps:

1. Launch the YouTube app.
2. Go to Library > Downloads.
3. Tap on the three dots next to a downloaded video.
4. Tap “Delete from downloads.”
5. Repeat for each video.

How To Free Up Storage Space On Your Phone

Finally, to delete offline playlists or podcasts in Spotify, do the following:

1. Open Spotify.
2. Go to Your Library > Music > Playlists.
3. The playlists you downloaded will be marked with a green arrow. Tap on a playlist like that.
4. Tap on the green arrow icon below the name of the playlist.
5. When a confirmation popup appears, tap Remove.
6. Repeat for podcasts, if you have any saved offline.

You should also rummage around in Podcasts, Apple Music, and other entertainment apps you’re using. Once you’ve cleaned up all the offline content you don’t need anymore, you’ll see how much iPhone memory you’ve managed to recover.

How to prevent iPhone storage from getting full again

Just like your closet, iPhone storage will get full again, and you will have to go through the steps above every once in a while. But there are things you can do to manage your oh-so-limited storage more wisely and not have to do that major cleanup quite as often.

Store photos and videos elsewhere

Even after you’ve trimmed some fat off your library, chances are Photos still hogs a lot of iPhone space. What to do? Transfer your photos and videos to your computer or to the cloud

If you have a Mac, the easiest way is to connect your iPhone and sync all media files to the Mac. Then you can delete the originals from your phone.

Note that when you sync photos with your Phone, some of them stay cached on your Mac. This cache occupies space on your disk after the sync is done, so it’s better to clean it up. A utility like CleanMyMac X is an easy way to clear iOS photo cache (and it’s free to download). In just two clicks you’ll remove all the junk files from your Mac.

Alternatively, you can upload your iPhone photos to an online storage like iCloud. It’s pretty convenient, because iCloud Photos automatically syncs every photo and video you take to the cloud, so you can access your library from any device, as long as it has internet connection. You do have to pay for iCloud storage, though, because the free 5 GB won’t be enough for your whole photo library.

Here’s how to upload photos to iCloud:

1. Sign in to your iCloud.com account. It’s the same as your Apple ID.
2. Go to Settings on your device and select Photos.
3. Turn on iCloud Photos.

Now your photos are automatically synced to iCloud, which means they'll be taking up space in iCloud, not on your iPhone.

Disable saving duplicate photos when shooting in HDR

On iPhones that don’t have Smart HDR, when you take photos in HDR, your iPhone saves two shots: the original picture and the processed one. You will save a lot of iPhone storage if you disable saving these duplicates. Just do the following:

Storage Space Boston

1. Go to Settings and select Camera.
2. Disable Keep Normal Photo.

From now, only the HDR versions of your photos will be saved. That said, the previous HDR and non-HDR copies of your photos will remain, so do run your photo library through Gemini Photos to find those similar shots.

Stop storing messages forever

By default, your iPhone stores all the messages you send and receive … forever. This is convenient if you want to read your 2-years-old conversations, but not so convenient when you run out of storage because your brother sends you fifteen memes every single day.

To stop your phone from saving messages forever, follow these steps:

1. Go to Settings and tap Messages.
2. Scroll down to Message History and tap Keep Messages.
3. Change Forever to 30 days or 1 year.
4. You’ll see a pop-up message asking if you want to delete older messages, tap Delete to proceed.

Bonus tip to help you clean iPhone storage

In iOS 11 and later, Apple brings storage management tools to your device. This means that you get unique storage saving suggestions based on your iPhone. They include things like Reviewing Large Attachments and Conversations, Offloading Unused Apps, Saving Messages to iCloud, and others. Therefore, if you’re running iOS 11 or later, go to iPhone Storage and check out the recommendations.

We hope you found our troubleshooting guide helpful in tackling that annoying “Storage Almost Full” message. Enjoy taking new photos and never have to worry about lack of iPhone storage again.

If you’ve been using an iPhone for a while, you’ve probably seen the “Storage Almost Full” pop-up. Suddenly, you can’t take any cute pictures of your pet or download any new apps. While Apple doesn’t tell you how to free up space on your iPhone, tests show that it starts to slow down when you have less than 500 MB of free space.

What’s Taking Up so Much Space on Your iPhone?

The first step to getting more free up space on your phone is to know what’s eating up all your storage in the first place. To see what’s taking up so much space on your iPhone, go to Settings > General > iPhone Storage.

At the top of your screen, you will see a horizontal bar graph that shows how much total storage you have and how much of that is used. The graph is broken down into five color-coded categories: apps, media, photos, messages, and “other.”

If your bar is full, here’s how to free up space on your iPhone in 13 ways:

How To Free Up Space oniPhone

• Enable Recommendations. Check to see if you have Recommendations in the iPhone Storage menu and enable them.

  If you want to free up space on your iPhone, you will probably see storage-saving tips from Apple just below your iPhone Storage bar. The recommendations shown will change depending on your usage. Just click on Enable to turn on the recommended option.

  Note: Certain recommendations will make unwanted changes to your phone. Make sure to read their description before enabling them.

• Delete large and unused apps. To remove an app, select one from the list at the bottom of the iPhone Storage screen, then tap Delete App.

  While you’re still in the iPhone Storage screen, you can scroll down to see a list of all the apps you have on your phone. Each app in the list is sorted by size, with the largest ones on top. The apps also provide information about the last time you opened them. Clicking on any of the apps will give you the option to delete it. You can also delete an app from the Home screen. You can do this by pressing and holding an app you want to delete until it begins to jiggle (probably out of fear of being deleted). Tap the “X” on the top left of the app, then click Delete on the confirmation pop-up.

  Warning: Deleting an app will remove it from your phone entirely. You will lose all your data associated with the app (such as saved games, passwords, etc.). And you will have to visit the App Store and download it again if you want it back on your phone.

• Offload large apps. To offload an app, tap on one from the iPhone Storage screen and then click Offload App.

  Offloading apps lets you reduce the size of an app, without losing any documents or data associated with it.

  When you offload an app, it doesn’t disappear from your Home screen. But the app now has an icon of a cloud with a downward-pointing arrow to the left of the name. You can reinstall the offloaded app by tapping on it.

  Note: You will need an internet connection to reinstall the app. So, don’t offload any apps that you will want to use outside of a wireless network.

  You can also automatically offload unused apps by going to Settings > iTunes & App Store > Offload Unused Apps. Apps will automatically be offloaded when the slider is green.

• Delete downloaded music. To delete your music, go to iPhone Storage > Music and tap Edit. To delete all of your songs, tap the red minus sign next to the “All Songs” option and then tap the delete button that appears. You can also delete individual artists by tapping the red minus sign and then Delete.
• Delete old podcasts. To delete podcasts, go to iPhone Storage > Podcasts and click Edit at the bottom of the screen. Then click the red minus sign next to a podcast and then the delete button that appears. When you delete a podcast, all the episodes will be removed.

  You can also stop the Podcast app from automatically downloading new episodes by going to Settings > Podcasts. Under the Episode Downloads screen, check the Off option.

  If you want to make sure your podcasts are not taking up too much space in the future, you can also enable the Delete Played Episodes option. This will delete podcasts from your phone after you have finished listening to them.

• Store photos on the cloud. To save your images to iCloud, go to Settings > Photos > iCloud Photos. Then make sure the slider next to iCloud Photos is green.

  When you enable this, your photos will be automatically uploaded to Apple’s cloud storage – and off your phone. Don’t worry. You can still browse, edit, and share your photos at any time. If you want to know how to transfer your photo to your Mac, check out our previous article here.

• Turn off photo streaming. You can turn off Photo Stream by going to Settings > Photos then toggle off the Upload to My Photo Stream button. You will know it is off when it is greyed-out.

  Photo Stream syncs the last 1,000 photos from all your devices for the past 30 days and collates them in one feed. While it does not count towards your iCloud storage, it does take up space on your phone. But really, these are just duplicates of photos you already have, so you might as well turn this feature off.

• Only save HDR-quality photos. You can save space by going to Settings > Camera and toggling the Keep Normal Photo button off.

  When you take a photo with an iPhone, it saves two versions: one with HDR (High Dynamic Range) and a normally exposed one. HDR combines 3 photos with different exposures to give you one with the best color and detail.

  When you have the Keep Normal Photo option enabled, a normal version of the photo will be saved to your phone along with an HDR one. Turning it off means your photos only take up half the space, which is perfect if you want to free up space on your iPhone.
• Delete content stored in Messages. You can manually delete content in Messages by going to Settings > General > iPhone Storage > Messages.

  The content is under five categories: Top Conversation, Photos, Videos, GIFs and Stickers, and Other. Each of the categories also displays the total size of all the files. Select a category then click Edit. Then choose the item or items that you want to delete. Finally, tap the Trash icon in the top right corner of your screen. Every photo, video, GIF, and stickers you use to jazz up your messages takes up a little space. Even if you only receive one of these, it takes up a little space on your phone. Even though they are small files, a lot of them can add up.

• Automatically delete messages. You can set your iPhone to delete messages automatically by going to Settings > Messages. Under Message History, click on Keep Messages, then choose either 30 Days or 1 Year. Tap on Delete on the confirmation dialog box.

By default, the message history in Messages is set to keep messages forever. But you don’t really need to hang on to all of them, unless you have legal or other important reasons for doing so.

You can also automatically delete audio messages. Go to Settings > Messages > Audio Messages, and click on Expire. Choose After 2 Minutes instead of the default option of Never.

What Does Other Mean in iPhone Storage?

The Other category consists of temporary files that the iOS does not recognize and cannot put into the standard categories. Other content consists of files like downloaded email attachments and web browsing caches. The Other category also includes device settings, Siri voices, voiceover data, and system files.

If you want to free up space on your iPhone, here’s how to delete all that other storage:

How to Delete Other Storage on Your iPhone

Unlike the apps, media, photos, and messages categories, the “Other” category is a lot less straightforward. You won’t be able to see what items comprise this category in the iPhone Storage menu.

1. Clear your browser cache. To clear Safari cache files, go to Settings > Safari > Advanced > Website Data. You can delete website data individually or choose to Remove All Website Data.
   

   Browsers like Safari and Chrome save data on their caches for web pages you visit often. This data is saved so the browser doesn’t have to load the content every time you go to the site. This enables your browser to load pages faster, but the data also takes up storage space. The same goes for music or video you download from Apple TV or Apple Music. The iOS categorizes the downloaded content as Media, but the cached files are stored in Other.

   
   

   To clear your Google Chrome browser cache, just click on the ellipsis at the bottom navigation panel. Tap History then Clear Browsing Data.

2. Delete old voice notes. You can delete a voice memo by opening the Voice Memos app and tapping Edit. Then select a recording you want to remove and hit Delete.
   

   Voice Memos are a great tool for students to record a lecture or record interviews and meetings in a business setting. But like all other files, they can eat up your storage space. Keep in mind that one hour of recorded audio usually takes up 30 MB of space.

3. Delete offline content from apps. To delete offline maps from Google Maps, just click on the hamburger menu to the top left (the one with three lines next to the Search Box). Go to Offline Maps and choose the one you’d like to delete.

Navigation apps like Google Maps and Waze store some data on your phone memory so you can use them even if you are offline. But if you don’t use these maps that often, then consider deleting them to free up precious phone space.

Just like the human body, your iPhone also needs a detox once in a while for it to work optimally. If all else fails, you can back up your iPhone data on iTunes before restoring it to factory settings. But until then, these tips should help you know how to free up space on your iPhone.