How to Manage Storage on iPhone

Let’s begin

It can be incredibly annoying when you run out of space on your iPhone and get the dreaded “iPhone Storage Full” alert. For a situation precisely like this, it is essential to know how to manage storage on iPhone. Lucikly for you, here we’ve discussed several methods on how to free up storage space on your iPhone.

How to find the storage capacity on your iPhone

Before you proceed to take any steps to clear space on your iPhone, you should check the status of your storage capacity. You’d need to find out how much space has been consumed and how much is remaining. You may simply accomplish this by heading to the Settings app on your iPhone.

You’ll notice a multicolored bar at the top of the screen with a category-by-category overview of what’s eating up your storage space.

Open your iPhone’s Settings app
Then scroll down and select General
Next, locate and choose iPhone Storage

How to manage storage on iPhone | Best 7 ways

The best way to manage space on your iPhone is either by deleting or backing up storage. Continue following this complete guide if you want to find out how to get more storage on iPhone.

Here is the list of methods on how to manage storage on iPhone:

Delete photos and videos
Save photos and videos on iCloud
Delete or merge contacts
Backup space on iCloud or other cloud storage
Delete or offload unused apps
Clear web browser caches
Delete old messages

Method 1: Mass delete duplicate photos and large videos from iPhone

With your iPhone’s powerful camera, your media files can take up most of your space. To catch the perfect moment, we frequently take many shots of the same picture. Similarly, when you capture photos in burst mode, you’ll have a large collection of images. Most of those will be of no use to you.

Here, in this section of this guide, we’ve explained how to delete duplicate photos and large videos on your iPhone. We’ve explored how you can achieve this with your iPhone, either with or without a third-party photo cleaner app.

Which is the best way on how to manage storage on iPhone? Delete similar photos and large videos from your iPhone. Use the third-party app called the Cleaner for iPhone.

Steps on how to delete duplicate pictures on your iPhone with the Cleaner app:

steps on how to delete duplicate photos on iPhone with the Cleaner app

Launch the Cleaner for iPhone app.
Then select the Photos tab. (Or tap on the Videos tab to remove large videos)
Next, choose the type of pictures you’d want to delete. For example, Similar Photos, Screenshots, Live Photos, Similar Burst Photos, or Similar Blurred Photos.
You may then select all of the images and remove them, or you can delete them individually. Alternatively, you may choose only the images you wish to delete and then hit Delete Selected.

Steps on how to delete pictures or videos on iPhone with the Photos app:

steps on how to delete duplicate pictures on iPhone from Photos app

Open your iPhone’s Photos app.
Next, tap on the Select icon at the top-right corner of your screen.
After that, choose all the pictures or videos you’d want to delete.
Once done, tap on the Trash symbol located at the bottom-right corner of your screen.
Finally, confirm your choice to delete the media files from your iPhone.

Method 2: Store photos and videos on iCloud

What if you’ve pictures that you don’t want to remove but take up a lot of your iPhone storage? Luckily you don’t have to delete those photos because of lack of space. You can save them on your iCloud account. In addition, you can even choose to save your photos and videos directly on your iCloud account instead of your iPhone.

Steps on how to manage photos and videos on your iPhone:

steps on how to move photos to iCloud from iPhone

Open your iPhone’s Settings app.
Then, select iCloud, and then choose Photos.
Enable the iCloud’s Photos option to have your pictures and videos uploaded on your iCloud account.

Method 3: Delete or merge contacts on your iPhone

Another way on how to get more storage on iPhone is by clearing unwanted contacts. When you’ve accumulated a large collection of contacts, chances are some of them are duplicates or incomplete.

The only way to deal with those contacts is doing it one by one. This is not a problem when you’re dealing with fewer contacts. However, when you’ve hundreds of contacts, then you’d need third-party help. So, if you’re wondering how to delete multiple contacts on iPhone, then try the Cleaner for iPhone app.

Which is the best way on how to manage storage on iPhone? Delete useless contacts and merge duplicate contacts from your iPhone. Use the third-party app called the Cleaner for iPhone.

Steps on how to delete or merge contacts on iPhone with the Cleaner app:

steps on how to delete contacts on iPhone with the Cleaner app

Launch the Cleaner for iPhone app.
Then, tap on the Contacts tab located at the bottom of the screen.
Next, select the type of contacts that you’d want to delete. For contacts with no name, number, or number and email, tap Incompletes. And for contacts with the same name, number, or email, tap on Duplicates.
After that, delete selected incomplete contacts or merge any duplicate contacts from your iPhone.

Video Tutorial on how to delete duplicate contacts on iPhone with the Cleaner app

Method 4: Backup your storage on iCloud or other cloud storage service

Another way on how to manage storage on iPhone is by storing your important files in the cloud. We already saw in an earlier method how we could save our photos and videos on our iCloud account. You get up to 5GB worth of free storage space on iCloud when your first sign-up.

You can also use other cloud-based services in addition to or instead of iCloud. Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, and many more are just a few examples. You get 15GB of storage with your Google Drive account, which you must share with your other Google accounts. Dropbox and OneDrive each provide 2GB and 5GB of free storage, respectively. However, if you want more space, then you can always buy more storage space for your iPhone.

Method 5: Deleting and offloading unnecessary apps

Most often, the many applications on your iPhone consume the most space. You can analyze the iPhone storage capacity from your Settings. This will also display the storage consumption of all your apps. Here are there are two ways on how to manage storage on iPhone. You can either delete unused apps or offload some of them. However, what is the difference between deleting and offloading an app?

When you delete apps on your iPhone, you’re actually removing both the app and its data. This means when you re-install the app, you’ll have to start from nothing. Whereas when you offload an app, you’re only removing the app while still keeping its data. This means you can pick up where you left off when you reinstall the app later.

Steps on how to delete apps on your iPhone:

On iPhone’s home screen, touch and hold the app icon, then select Remove App from the options menu.
Or you can press and hold on to any area of your iPhone’s home screen until all the app icons start to jiggle. Then tap on the minus icon on top of the app that you’d want to delete.
The next step for both options is to tap on Delete App.
After that, to confirm your choice, tap on Delete.

Steps on how to offload apps on your iPhone:

Open your iPhone’s Settings app.
Tap on General.
Next, locate and tap on iPhone Storage.
After that, select the app that you’d want to offload from the list and tap Offload App.
Then tap again on Offload App to confirm your choice.

Method 6: Clear web browsing data from your iPhone

Caches are used by your browsers to save your browsing history and data. This is mostly to speed up your online browsing and save your login information. You won’t have to log in every time you visit the website, which will speed up your browsing experience.

It’s simple to clear caches on your iPhone’s Safari or Chrome browsers. If you want to remove caches or cookies from your Safari browser, you’d need to go to your iPhone’s Settings. There select Safari, then tap on Clear History and Website Data and finally, tap on Clear History and Data.

Steps on how to clear browser cache from Safari on iPhone

For deleting browsing data from your Chrome browser, launch the app on your iPhone. Then tap on the More symbol ( three dots icon) and tap on Privacy. Next, click on Clear Browsing Data. After that, you can select whether you’d want to delete browsing history, site data, cookies, cached files, etc. Once you’ve selected, tap on Done.

Method 7: Automatically delete messages from your iPhone

If you don’t delete your old messages, it can clutter your iPhone’s storage space. So, how to manage storage on iPhone with respect to your messages? Fortunately, there is a way on how you can set your iPhone to retain your messages for a limited period of time. You may accomplish this using the Settings app on your iPhone.

Steps on how to delete old messages from your iPhone

Launch your iPhone’s Settings app.
Then scroll down and select Messages and then Keep Messages.
After that, select whether you’d want to keep your messages on your iPhone for 30 days, one year, or forever.

Conclusion

In this guide, we’ve explored seven methods on how to manage storage on iPhone. It includes deleting photos and videos, deleting or merging contacts, backing up files on iCloud, deleting or offloading redundant apps, clearing browser caches, and removing old messages. Using all the tricks mentioned here, we’ll aid in removing and making more storage space on your iPhone.