Last updated on August 4th, 2019
The annoying iPhone almost full storage notification that popups up many times on your iPhone! The one that says ‘Storage Almost Full: you can manage your storage in Settings’. There are things you can do to quickly free up some space. Here is what you can do to help fix an iPhone out of storage!
1. Delete unwanted photos and videos
Removing unwanted photos and videos from your phone is one of the simplest things to do to free up storage. Start by getting rid of the images you probably don’t need, like screenshots, selfies and bursted photos.
You can back up your iPhone photos with full resolution and videos at up to 1080p resolution in Google Photos which is a free service.
2. Delete unused apps
Check all the apps that you have downloaded. There might be some apps that you no longer need or no longer use.
Just tap and hold any app icon until all the icons start wiggling. You’ll notice that many, if not most of them, have a little X at the top left corner. To delete an app, tap the X, then tap Delete in the dialog the displays.
Go to Settings > General > Usage > Manage Storage > tap and delete any unwanted apps.
3. Delete ‘Recently Deleted‘
Deleting photos and videos doesn’t actually delete them for 30 days. Deleted photos and videos get moved to the “Recently Deleted” folder. Apple did this to let you recover media you might have accidentally deleted. They’re still using up storage on your iPhone until they expire.
To remove them once and for all, go to Photos > Albums > Recently Deleted and select all the files you want gone for good and then tap “Delete” in the lower right corner.
4. Uninstall and reinstall storage hungry apps
Some apps store data locally or cache things for faster performance. A huge example of this is the Facebook app. Uninstalling and reinstalling those apps will usually get rid of all the cached data, in turn freeing up storage space.
5. Clear Safari cache
Clearing the Safari cache can also free up space on iPhone. Safari stores data (cache) to cut down time spent accessing frequently visited sites. Over time, this cache builds up quite a bit.
- Go to Settings > Safari > Clear History and Website Data
- Restart your iPhone
6. Deleting the conversations on Whatsapp
If WhatsApp is one of messaging apps you use the most, there might be many conversations stored on your iPhone. You can manage those conversations to help freeing up space on your iPhone.
- Launch WhatsApp.
- Before deleting the conversations, make sure you have backup the important ones. On the WhatsApp screen hit the gear icon (Settings) >> select Chats >> Chat Backup. Here, you can tap Back Up Now and your chat history will be saved on iCloud.
- Now, you can delete them by swiping right on the chat list you want to delete, tap the three dots ( … ) and choose Delete Chat.
- Or, you can delete all of them at once by tapping the Settings icon at the bottom-right corner, hit Chats and tap Clear All Chats.
7. Manage Messages
All those videos and images shared with and from your friends in Messages takes up space. The first thing is to set Messages preferences to keep messages for just 30-days. The second is to delete existing message threads manually.
8. Turn off iCloud
iCloud drive is a cool feature that allows you to access files from your mac or any other iOS device connected to iCloud. To create more space on your iPhone, turn off iCloud Drive:
Go to Settings > iCloud > iCloud Drive > Off
9. Backup and restore
There are two ways to backup and restore an iPhone. 1) iTunes and 2) iCloud.
Backing up your device simply means making a copy of your iPhone’s data and settings in a file.
Restoring your iPhone means replacing all your current data and settings, with all the data and setting within a previous iPhone backup file.
10. Newsstand & Social Media Apps
Some magazine apps from your newsstand may not automatically delete old issues or copies. Generally, most magazine apps keep the latest 3 issues in the app. Old issues are deleted as new ones appear. However, there are some that will just store the entire history of old issues within the app. This could cause your iPhone memory to reach its capacity sooner.
If you use social media apps then do check how much storage they consume – it’s worth checking them in the Safari browser to keep their data off your device. The same applies to Visual Voicemail (if your carrier provides it).