We’ve all been there: You open your camera app to capture that perfect moment and then… Your phone doesn’t have enough storage to take one more photo. Instead of forcing yourself to delete necessary apps or beloved photos and videos, try these solutions instead.
1. Clear Your iMessage App
Your iPhone’s default setting is to store all of your texts permanently. To stop your phone from saving all your texts forever, go to your Settings app and tap Messages. Scroll down until you hit Message History, and tap on Keep Messages. There, you can change Forever to 30 Days or 1 Year.
Another solution is to delete images in iMessage. These images are kept as part of your conversation with someone and are not associated with your saved photos. If someone you know sends you a lot of photos, go to your iMessage conversation with them and tap on the “i” in the top right corner. This will bring up a page of all the images you’ve shared with each other over text. Gently press on an image and then tap on More. This will let you choose which images you want to delete, which you can do by tapping the trash can icon. Just make sure you’ve saved any images you want to keep to your camera roll before doing so.
2. Don’t Save Photos Twice
If you’ve noticed that your iPhone automatically saves two photos whenever you take a picture, that’s because it saves the HDR version and the normal version. This can take up a lot of space, since this doubles the amount of photos on your camera roll. To stop double-saving HDR photos, open the Settings app and tap on Photos and Camera. If you scroll all the way down, you’ll see the option to Keep Normal Photo. By turning that off, you’ll only save the HDR photo to your camera roll instead of both.
3. Clear Your Browser Cache
If your go-to browser is Safari, your iPhone may be storing data and web history that takes up space. To clear your browser cache in Safari, open the Settings app and tap Safari. There, you’ll see an option to Clear History and Web Data.
Alternatively, if you use Chrome instead of Safari (like myself), open the Chrome app and tap the triple-dot icon in the top right corner. Tap History, and then scroll to the bottom and select Clear Browsing Data.
4. Clean Out App Data
Most apps store data, which can take up significant amounts of space. To see which apps are consuming the most storage space on your iPhone, open the Settings app, tap General, then select Storage and iCloud Usage. Tap Manage Storage. This will bring up a list of all your apps and how much space each one is occupying. If you click on an app and the entry for Documents and Data is more than 500 MB, deleting and reinstalling the app is recommended to clear the space. Simply tap on Delete App then go to the App Store to re-download it.
5. Remove iBooks You Aren’t Reading
Why keep downloaded iBooks when you’re no longer reading them? Free up space on your phone by going to the iBooks app and deleting books you don’t need. They’ll still be available in iCloud to re-download whenever you wish.
6. Delete Music You No Longer Listen To
To manually delete music you don’t listen to anymore, open the Music app and press firmly on a song. This will cause a menu to pop up on your screen, where you can choose Delete From Library to delete the song from your iPhone. Do note that this will also delete the song from all of your other devices as well — you can restore iTunes purchases by visiting your Account Information page.
Another alternative is to delete your entire music collection on your iPhone — especially if you use music streaming apps often, like Spotify. All you need to do is go to Settings, tap General, then Storage and iCloud Usage. From there, select Manage Storage then scroll until you find your Music app. By tapping Edit in the top right corner, you can delete all the songs on your iPhone at once.
7. Delete Your Deleted Notes and Photos (Again)
You might think that deleting old notes and photos is an easily way to clear up space on your iPhone. However, don’t forget to delete them from the “recently deleted” as well. This will finally get rid of notes and photos you no longer need completely. Simply go to your Notes app and click the top left arrow to go to your home page. This will show a Recently Deleted folder that you can clear by clicking Edit then Delete All.
Similarly, in your Photos app, scroll until you see a Recently Deleted album, tap Select in the top right corner, then Delete All.
