Need more iPhone® storage? If you’re anything like me, you have a decade’s worth of memories stored on your iPhone. All of those photos, videos and texts, along with your entire app library, can take up a lot of space. Thankfully, there are various ways to maximize your iPhone’s storage capacity. We’ll show you how to make more space on your iPhone and how to transport essential items to the cloud for even more storage. GeeksChalk Experts help you make the most of your Apple devices every day. Whether you want to speed up a slow iPhone or learn what to do when an iPhone is frozen, we can help. Here’s our guide on how to increase your iPhone storage.
The best way to save local storage is to invest in a cloud storage service like Apple’s iCloud, Google Drive, Box or Dropbox to offload some of your files. But there are also certain settings you can change to make sure you’re using your iPhone’s storage capacity to its fullest. See below to learn more about how to free up storage space on your iPhone.
How much storage space do I need on my iPhone?
To update the software on your phone, you’ll need about 6GB of free space. For iOS® 18, you need at least 16GB to accommodate all its features. If your needs are simple—you just want to take photos and install apps without worrying about hitting a snag—make sure you have at least 2GB of space.
What takes up most of your iPhone storage?
Photos, videos, music, and apps are what take up the most space on your iPhone. Your iPhone can fill up quickly depending on the size of its storage capacity and how much content you have.
Check iPhone storage
To maximize your iPhone’s storage, you need to know what’s taking up your storage in the first place. Take a look at what’s eating up your storage so that you know where to get started. Follow these steps to find this information.
- Tap on the Settings app on your iPhone.
- Tap on General.
- Tap on iPhone storage.
- On this page, you’ll see a summary of how much storage you’re using on your iPhone vs. the maximum allowed. Scrolling down, you can also see which items are using the most storage. By default, the list is organized by Size, although this can be changed to Name and Last used date.
How to free up storage space on iPhone
Here are the best methods to free up storage space on your iPhone:
Make sure your iPhone is optimizing photo and video storage
Photos and videos take up most of your iPhone storage. Thankfully, the iPhone’s settings menu has an option that enables your device to save smaller photo and video files locally if your device is low on space, instead of the original versions. These full-resolution photos and videos are stored in iCloud, and you can download them as needed. To make sure this feature is turned on, go into the Settings app, and tap your name at the top. Scroll down, then choose iCloud. Select Photos under Apps Using iCloud. Toggle on Sync this iPhone so that your photos and videos are synced and stored in the cloud.
Next, select Optimize iPhone storage. When this is selected, full resolution images and videos are replaced by smaller, device-sized versions. But don’t worry, full versions can be downloaded at any time in iCloud.
Depending on how many photos and videos you have on your iPhone, this can take up quite a bit of time, but once it’s finished, you should see significantly more space on your device storage.
If you are low on iCloud storage, you can upgrade your iCloud. In the US, you can upgrade to 50GB for only a dollar a month, or you can go bigger: 200GB for $3 a month or 2TB for $10 a month. Prices vary depending on your country or region.
You automatically get 5 GB of free iCloud storage on your iPhone, but if you’re out of space or almost out of space, you can increase your iCloud storage by going to Settings > (your name) > iCloud > Storage > Get More Storage. Choose a plan and then follow the instructions.
Save photos and videos to a cloud service instead of on your device
The best way to free up space on your iPhone is to remove files you don’t need to store on your device, but that doesn’t mean you have to downsize your photo library. Instead, try storing them in a third-party cloud storage service like Google Photos rather than on your device. It’s a quick way to free up a lot of storage without requiring you to part with old memories.
Before you delete anything, make sure the photos you want to save have been backed up or transferred to Google Photos. If your photos and videos are not backed up to another service like Google Photos, Dropbox, Box or OneDrive before being deleted, they’ll be permanently erased.
You might wonder why you need to use a separate cloud service if your photos are already stored in iCloud; deleting your photos from your iPhone erases them from iCloud as well, so you’ll want to use another service if you plan to delete images from your device.
Delete unwanted photos and videos
Photos and videos are a wonderful way to remember important events and people, but they also take up a lot of storage space on devices, such as iPhones. That’s why it’s important to regularly delete unwanted photos and videos to free up storage space. To do so, open the _Photos_app on your iPhone, then choose an image or video you wish to delete. Next, tap the Delete icon at the bottom right of the app. Choose Delete photo (or Delete video) to remove it from your library. Note: Deleting a file from your Photos library does not actually delete it and therefore restore storage space. Instead, it sends it to the Recently deleted folder in the app, where it will sit for about 30 days before it’s automatically deleted. To remove files immediately, you’ll have to also go into this folder and delete them.
Offload unused apps to increase your iPhone storage without deleting anything
One great way to increase your iPhone storage without deleting anything is to offload apps you no longer use. Many applications on your iPhone just sit there, like apps for airlines, third-party cameras and music production. Even if you use these apps occasionally, you probably don’t need daily access to most of them, which is why you should consider offloading apps, especially when you desperately need storage.
If you don’t know where to start, take a look at which apps you haven’t used in a long time. Go to Settings > General > iPhone Storage. . You’ll see a list of your apps along with how much space each app occupies and the last time you used it. Scroll through the list and try offloading apps that you haven’t used in a long time. Certain built-in apps like Photos and Messages can’t be offloaded, so be warned. To offload an app, tap on it and hit Offload App. Wait a little bit and the app should then be removed offline, while your documents and data will stay saved on your device.
If you need temporary storage, for a software download, just go through the list and offload every app you can. The amount that’s offloaded for each app will vary, but you should see the number next to App Size. Discard the number next to Documents & Data, because that will stay on your device. The only way to get rid of that is to actually delete the app.
Offload as many apps as you need until you have enough storage. . You can also set your iPhone to do this automatically by turning on the switch next to Offload Unused Apps.
You can’t use an app that’s offloaded, but if you want to get an app back, go to your App Library and tap on the iCloud button to re-download it. If the offloaded app is on your home screen, simply tap on it to download it. You won’t have to re-sign in or anything; you’ll have access to the app as if it was never deleted.
Delete unwanted apps
Another way to increase storage on your iPhone is by deleting apps you no longer use. Remember, you can always reinstall the apps from the App Store if you ever want to use them again. To delete an app from your iPhone, touch and hold the app on the Home Screen, tap Remove App, tap Delete App, then tap Delete to confirm.
Automatically delete old messages
It’s not just iPhone photos, videos and apps that may be clogging your device’s storage; getting rid of old text messages can be helpful as well. You can set your iPhone to automatically delete your message history. To get started, venture into the Settings app. Scroll down, then tap Apps. Scroll down again, then select Messages. Next, tap Keep messages under Message history. Choose how long you wish to keep messages: 30 days, 1 year, or Forever. If you choose either of the first two, messages will begin to be deleted immediately upon making the selection.
Delete unwanted files
Another method to free up storage on your iPhone is by deleting files. This requires going into the Files app and finding content to delete. To get started, tap on the _Files app_on iPhone. Under the Browse menu, choose On my iPhone. Hard press the file or folder you wish to delete, then tap Delete from the menu. Confirm your selection.
Note: Certain files can’t be deleted this way. If a folder is created by an app or is designated as an app library, it cannot be deleted.
Clear your Safari browser cache
Another way to free up storage on your iPhone is to clear the Safari browser cache. When you first visit a website, your browser downloads all the necessary files to display the page. These files are then stored in a cache so that the next time you visit the same site, the content can be loaded from your device’s storage instead of being downloaded again. While this can speed up page loading times, it also consumes storage space on your device. To clear the Safari browser cache, open the Settings app and tap on Apps. Choose Safari. Then, scroll down the page and tap Clear History and Website Data. You’ll have the option to remove the cache from the Last Hour, Today, Today and yesterday, or All history. Once you’ve made your selection, tap Clear History.
Delete videos and music from apps
You probably have videos and music stored offline in multiple apps on your phone. If you download your Apple Music content to your device for example, you can remove this content to save storage space. However, doing so means that to access the songs again, you’ll need to be online to stream them. To remove music and videos stored on your iPhone, go to the Music app on your iPhone, touch and hold a song, album, playlist, music video, TV show, or movie that you’ve downloaded, tap Remove, then tap Remove Downloads.
To automatically remove downloaded Apple music that you haven’t played in a while, go to Settings > Apps > Music. Tap Optimize Storage, then turn on Optimize Storage.
You can perform similar steps to delete content on the Podcasts app on iPhone.
Disabled Apple Intelligence
You could free up over 5GB of data just by disabling Apple Intelligence. Starting with the iOS 18.3, Apple Intelligence is enabled by default, but it isn’t a requirement — and if you don’t want to use it or would prefer the free space, you can turn it off. Go to Settings > General > iPhone Storage > iOS to see how much space Apple Intelligence takes up on your device. You can then go Settings > Apple Intelligence & Siri > _Apple Intelligence_and swap the toggle to Off.
Of course, this trick only works if you’re using an iPhone 15 Pro or newer, and the amount of data already on your phone also plays a role. During testing, we found that the freed-up gigabytes would become available much more quickly if your phone was close to full capacity. Phones with a lot of storage space still available took longer to register the change.