iPhone Running Out of Space? Do This NOW

I am mostly an Android and Windows user so the only device I have to use for screenshots is in older iPad mini that I use for teleprompting. It is no longer capable of getting system updates. So your settings might look a little different.

If you’ve been experiencing issues with your iPhone’s storage running out there are some ways you can fix the issue without deleting your photos. We all know that’s what usually consumes most of the space on our phones.

First you can move them to your iCloud account.

Here is how you do that go to Settings then Photos. Turn on iCloud Photos. Select “Optimize iPhone Storage” (It may already have a checkmark beside it by default)

Optimizing your storage puts your full-quality photos in your iCloud and keeps the smaller versions on your phone. It automatically frees up a lot of space.

However, you do have to keep track of your iCloud storage. The default is 5GB. That’s not really very much space. You can check that out by clicking on your name under settings. The iCloud storage amount will be displayed on the right.

Click the arrow and you can see how much you are using. Click “Manage Storage” and see what is consuming the space. Click “Change Storage Plan” to see your options to purchase more storage. If you don’t take too many photos or videos The 50GB plan is probably enough, but if you are a person who is “shutter happy” then you might want to consider the 200GB plan.

To check what is using the most space you can go to Settings then General then iPhone Storage. This will show you a breakdown of what amount of space each item is using.

Another way of freeing up space is to offload unused apps. This will remove the app, but keep any data associated with the app so if you decide to use it again your data is still there.

To do this go to Settings then General then iPhone Storage. Tap an app that hasn’t been used in awhile then choose “Offload App”

Deleting old downloads and large files is another strategy for freeing up storage. To do so go to the “Files” app tap Browse then Downloads. You can remove Videos, Zipped Files and PDFs (generally large sized files)

Clearing Safari’s cache can free up hundreds of Megabytes of storage. Go to Settings then scroll down to Safari. On the right tap “Clear History and Website Data”

If you want maximize space fast here are the quickest steps to do so:

1. Turn on iCloud Photos + Optimize Storage

2. Offload unused apps

3. Clear Safari data

Watch the Savvy Tech Grandma 45 second video here.

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