Delete Documents And Data
Documents and Data is the app caches, sign-in info, message history and other app related documents that an app stores on your iPhone. Over time the Documents and Data occupied by an app may become greater than the app size itself.XResearch source
Removing Pictures And Videos
Reduce The Size Of Your Icloud Backup
When you back up your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to iCloud, the most important information on your device is backed up automatically. Learn more about what iCloud backs up.
Many iOS apps automatically back up to iCloud after you install them. You can decrease the size of your iCloud Backup and free up space in iCloud when you stop backing up apps that you don’t use or delete old iCloud backups.
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How To Delete Other Data To Free Up iPhone Storage Space
Learn how to free up iPhone storage space by deleting or reducing the space taken by Other data on your iPhone or iPad by following this simple guide.
A number of your generally used apps can finish up temporarily saving files that may encounter GBs. By clearing the cache of these apps, you are able to lessen the space occupied by Other. This is particularly helpful if you are using Dropbox, Google Drive, or other application and frequently sync files across devices and platforms.
If you are using iCloud, launch the Settings app, and navigate to Photos. Enable iCloud Photos, if you havent enabled it already, which will automatically upload and safely store all your photos and videos in iCloud. You can then tap on the Optimise iPhone Storage option so that if your iPhone is low on space, full-resolution photos and videos are automatically replaced with smaller versions. You can download the full-resolution versions from iCloud at any time.
iPhone iPad Or Ipod Touch
If your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch is set up to access iCloud email, you can delete messages from any mailbox, then empty the Trash to free up space:
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How To Clear Other Storage On iPhone And iPad
Weve established that you probably wont be able to clear the Other or System Data storage on your iPhone completely. Thats nothing to worry about. In fact, its better that way, as the Other category contains useful data that improves your iOS experience.
For example, if you have downloaded more voices for your Siri, they would be saved in the Other section.
Here are some ways to clear your iPhones Other storage of unnecessary content:
How Do I Know Where To Start Deleting
On the iPhone Storage page, youll also notice recommendations for how to optimize your storage, which is arranged in order by the size of the apps on your iPhone.
When you tap on each app, it pulls up a screen displaying the apps size, which is often less than a few hundred megabytes of data . This is often a great way to find apps that are taking up memory that you would like to delete. Its easy to miss those that get tucked away inside forgotten folders. The size of any documents or data within apps are also displayed here.
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The Nuclear Option: Backup And Reset With Itunes
You can go through your iPhone trying to delete every little cache that could grow the size of Other storage, but if you really want to make it as small as possible, you need to back up your phone and reset it. This can take a little while.
The best way to do this is to use iTunes on your Mac or PC.
Connect your iPhone to your computer and launch iTunes. On a Mac with macOS Catalina or later, youll use Finder instead, but the process is the same. You may be prompted to allow access on your iPhone and required to enter your passcode, which you should do.
Select your iPhone by clicking the little phone icon in the upper left, and under Backups, choose This Computer. Checking Encrypt local backup is a good idea, so your account passwords and Health data gets backed up, too. Just choose a password you wont forget. Click the button to Back up now.
Create an encrypted backup to make the restore process as painless as possible.
When the backup is done, disconnect your iPhone and head to Settings> General> Reset and choose Erase All Content and Settings. This will return your iPhone to an out-of-the-box state. When it restarts and its in the initial setup process, re-connect it to your computer with iTunes open, and follow the instructions on screen to restore your device.
This is the longest and most involved way to reduce the size of Other storage, but its also the best theres just no way to get it any smaller than it will be after a fresh reset and restore.
What To Do When Icloud Storage Is Full
If you run out of storage space, there are a few ways to fix it. Here are your two options.
- A)Buy More Space
The first is to increase the amount of storage you have, if you havent already. Youll need to pay for extra storage, which some of you may not want to do.
- B) Delete Files
The next option is to manually free up space by deleting photos, videos, and any unwanted files.
We will show you how to do both options, breaking down each into smaller steps when necessary.
You can do most of the steps below on either your iPhone or iPad however, some steps can only be performed on a Mac or PC.
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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 wont be able to see what items comprise this category in the iPhone Storage menu.
Browsers like Safari and Chrome save data on their caches for web pages you visit often. This data is saved so the browser doesnt 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.
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.
Find Other Files To Back Up And/ Or Delete
Apps, photos and videos will be the biggest offenders when it comes to taking up room on your iPhone, but there are other areas to check too.
You’ve probably built up a lot of ‘Documents’ in your Messages or old Mail that’s actually just spam, old memes, or files you have saved elsewhere. You can back up your iPhone files to your computer or a cloud storage solution, then just purge everything.
If you select ‘Safari’ from the Settings app, you can tap ‘Clear History and Website Data’ to remove all locally cached files from your phone.
What’s more, if you tap ‘Advanced’ and then ‘Website Data’, you can remove these files on a site-by-site basis. If you’ve installed other browsers, they’ll have similar options.
iOS doesn’t give you much access to the file system but if there’s any app that you rely on but think is taking up too much room, just uninstall and reinstall it – that should be enough to erase any unneeded temporary files that have built up.
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Run A Full Reset On Your iPhone
All of our tips on how to increase storage space on your iPhone involves individually deleting files. The other, more drastic option is to actually reset your iPhone, then specifically add the files and apps you know you need. That link will take you through the steps.
Don’t do this lightly though you need to make sure to back up your iPhone first, so you don’t lose anything important. Then you’ll need to restore the content you want without re-adding the superfluous junk taking up too much space.
Frankly, this option could be more time-consuming than just deleting content individually, unless you’re really planning to trash the majority of your files. Otherwise, the previous sections should give you all the steps you need to increase your disk space.
Michael Hicks began his freelance writing career with TechRadar in 2016, covering emerging tech like VR and self-driving cars. Nowadays, he works as a staff editor for Android Central, but still writes occasional TR reviews, how-tos and explainers on phones, tablets, smart home devices, and other tech.
Delete Or Offload Apps You Dont Use
When you do have some time to spare, do try and delete or offload apps you no longer use or want. Apple, being the geniuses they are, gives you the option to view when last you used certain apps, just go to General > iPhone Storage to make this process quick and easy.
If you dont want to lose data associated with the app , you can easily offload the apps instead which will ensure that your documents and data will still be available when you reinstall it. Head on over to Settings > General > iPhone Storage, click on the app and select Offload App.
While youre at it, prevent your iPhone from running out of space in the future by heading to the App Store option under Settings and switching on the Offload Unused Apps.
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Delete Or Offload Apps Youve Not Used For Awhile
When you do have the time, you should definitely delete or offload apps you no longer want or use. Apple conveniently shows you the last time you used certain apps when you head to Settings, select General, and click iPhone Storage, so that can help make this process faster and easier.
If you dont want to lose data associated with the app, you can offload them instead. By doing that, your documents and data will still be available when you reinstall it. To offload, you just need to head back to Settings, click on General,and once again tap on iPhone Storage. Click on the app and select Offload App.
- Image: Sheena Vasani
- Tap on iPhone Storage under General. Image: Sheena Vasani
- Tap on the app you wish to offload. Image: Sheena Vasani
- Image: Sheena Vasani
While youre at it, prevent your iPhone from running out of space in the future by heading to the App Store option under Settings and toggling on the Offload Unused Apps switch.
- Under Settings click App Store. Image: Sheena Vasani
- Toggle on Offload Apps under App Store. Image: Sheena Vasani
Tip #1: Clear The Browser Cache
Internet browsers like Safari, Chrome, Firefox, etc. save things like browsing history, cookies, and other temporary files to make the internet experience smoother and seamless, but all of those extra files take up a lot of space especially if you use the particular browser a lot. To clean up the cache, simply go to Settings > Safari > Clear History and Website Data.
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Disable Saving Duplicate Photos When Shooting In Hdr
On iPhones that dont 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:
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.
Store Photos And Videos Elsewhere
Even after youve 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 its better to clean it up. A utility like CleanMyMac X is an easy way to clear iOS photo cache . In just two clicks youll remove all the junk files from your Mac.
Alternatively, you can upload your iPhone photos to an online storage like iCloud. Its 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 wont be enough for your whole photo library.
Heres how to upload photos to iCloud:
Now your photos are automatically synced to iCloud, which means they’ll be taking up space in iCloud, not on your iPhone.
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Move Your Photos And Videos To Cloud Storage
After youve cleaned up your photo library, the next thing youll want to do is upload your pictures to a cloud storage service like iCloud or Google Photos. Both will allow you to move your high-quality photos and videos while keeping a smaller copy on your phone to help conserve storage.
Heres how you move your photos to iCloud:
Whats Taking Up So Much Space On Your iPhone
The first step to getting more free up space on your phone is to know whats eating up all your storage in the first place. To see whats 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, heres how to free up space on your iPhone in 13 ways:
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How To Free Up Space On iPhone Manually
1. Deleting some applications and games
The best method to save storage is deleting some application and games you never use or use very little since some of them take up far more memories than you expectation. Go to Setting > General > Usage > Manage Storage, choose any one application, you can see how much the app itself and the data inside it takes up, you will find some unexpected hogs. Although some apps are small by themselves, it stores a large quantity of files. Dont hesitate to delete those taking up a large number of memories applications and games.
2. Setting messages to automatically expire
Many users dont have the habit of deleting old messages, such as me, deleting in time will free up storage on iPhone. Actually, with iOS 8, you can set automatically delete them. Go to Settings > Messages. Under Keep Message, select the date you want.
3. Stopping using Photo Stream
Many people opened Photo Stream unintentionally, if you dont need to share your photos from iPad to iPhone all the time, you should turn it off. You know, Photo Stream will automatically sync your last 1,000 photos, which means that those photos will take up about 1 GB. Go to Settings > Photos & Camera, turn off My Photo Stream.
4. Clear your safari cache