Guide
How to free up storage on iPhone
That storage full warning always seems to arrive when you are trying to take a photo or install an update.
Updated 6 July 20267 min readBy AngusPart of Why is my computer so slow
Learning how to free up storage on iPhone takes about ten minutes and, done properly, can hand back several gigabytes without deleting a single photo you care about. When your iPhone says storage is full it usually is not your photos alone, it is a mix of app caches, downloaded videos, old message attachments and apps you forgot you installed.
This guide works through the fixes in order of payoff, biggest space back first. Everything uses the settings already on your phone, so there is nothing to buy and nothing risky to install.
See exactly what is using your storage
Before deleting anything, find out where the space has actually gone. Open Settings, tap General, then iPhone Storage. Wait a few seconds and you will see a coloured bar and a list of apps ranked by how much room they take.
The list is the map for everything below. Photos, and apps like TikTok, YouTube, Instagram and Podcasts, are usually the biggest offenders because they store downloaded media you no longer need.
Offload big apps without losing your data
- In Settings, General, iPhone Storage, tap the app at the top of the list.
- Choose Offload App to remove the app but keep its documents and data.
- Reinstall it later from the App Store and your data returns exactly as it was.
- For apps you truly never use, choose Delete App instead to reclaim everything.
Good to know
- Offloading is reversible and safe, so it is the first thing to try on any large app.
- Turn on Offload Unused Apps at the bottom of the same screen to let your phone do this automatically in future.
Clear the space photos and videos are using
Photos and videos are almost always the number one user of space. Turning on iCloud Photos with Optimise iPhone Storage keeps full-quality versions in iCloud and lighter versions on the phone, which can free up a large amount of room.
Open Settings, tap your name, iCloud, then Photos, and switch on Sync this iPhone and Optimise iPhone Storage. Note that iCloud only includes 5GB free, so a paid iCloud+ plan may be worth it if you have a large library.
Good to know
- Empty the Recently Deleted album in Photos, deleted items sit there for 30 days and still take up space.
- Review your largest videos manually, a few minutes of 4K video can be larger than hundreds of photos.
Trim messages, Safari and downloads
- In Settings, Messages, set Keep Messages to 1 Year instead of Forever so old attachments clear themselves.
- In Settings, Apps, Safari, tap Clear History and Website Data to remove cached files.
- In the Files app, open Downloads and delete PDFs, images and videos you have finished with.
Stop it filling up again
Once you have space back, a couple of settings keep it that way. Offload Unused Apps handles apps automatically, and Optimise iPhone Storage handles photos. Together they mean you should see the storage full warning far less often.
If your phone still fills up within weeks and you regularly hit the limit, that is a sign your library has genuinely outgrown the phone, and either an iCloud+ plan or a higher-capacity phone at your next upgrade is the sensible fix rather than constant clearing.