The one question my iPhone friends always ask for help with is usually “how do I free up space on my iPhone?” It’s pretty much the same question no matter the generation of iPhone, as almost all people I know opt for the lowest memory options on the iPhone since it is so expensive to begin with. Even with a standard upgrade in storage space to 32GB, even new iPhone owners run out of space quickly because the camera and video quality are so much better than previous generations. The better the picture, the higher amount of information each photo takes which adds up to full memory. So how do you free up space on your iPhone? Download Google Photos and have it back up your photos for free.
How to use Google Photos to move all your photos and videos to the cloud with free unlimited storage
- Install the Google Photos app from the App Store
- Open the app
- Create a free Google account (Gmail email address) if you don’t have one
- Sign into Google Photos with your Gmail account
- At the top click on Menu
- Select Settings Back up & sync.
- Tap “Back up & sync” on
- Connect to a WiFi network so you don’t kill your data plan
- Leave the app open and all of your Photos will back up to Google Photos
- You can sign into Google Photos from a computer to ensure your photos and videos are backed up
- Once your photos are backed up, you can delete the files stored on your phone to free up space
How to Free up space using Google Photos
- With Google Photos open on your iPhone, click on the menu button (the three lines in the search bar at the top left)
- Click on Free up space
- The app will automatically calculate how many photos and videos are ready to delete
- Select delete
If you use this process to backup your photos and videos, you should never run out of space on your iPhone again unless you never delete hundreds of apps from your phone. If that’s you, you should activate your iPhone’s automatic app delete tool following Luke’s tutorial here. Google Photos is a free and great way to backup your most precious memories without ever needing to pay for extra storage on iCloud.