Apple bundles plenty of storage hacks that can help you reclaim some of your iPhone’s lost space. On iOS, you can choose to offload large apps while retaining key data. You can also merge duplicate photos in your library to make more room for new content. Here’s how to get started.
Offload apps you no longer use
Offload apps you no longer use
Most of us avoid booting any apps from our phones thinking we may need them someday in the future. Yet, at the same time, apps take up a significant chunk of storage. To overcome this conundrum, your iPhone offers a better option: offloading apps. You can offload apps on your iPhone without affecting their documents and data. It’s kind of a softer delete, this way, when you reinstall the app, it will instantly restore the same state you left it in at the time of uninstallation and you can begin using it without going through a setup process.
Delete unused apps
Delete unused apps
The easiest method to free storage is to just delete an app outright. Chances are you have installed a number of apps or games that you just stopped using and that’s valuable iPhone space you can take back. You can check this for yourself from Settings > General > iPhone Storage. Below each app you will see a “Last used” date and to the right the amount of storage that app is using. The list is sorted by the amount of storage the apps are using, so briefly scroll through a you can probably free up at least a few GB of apps that you haven’t used in a year or more. When you find an app you want to delete just tap on it and select “Delete App” on the following screen.
Find and clear duplicate photos
Find and clear duplicate photos
If you’re on iOS 16 or higher, the default Photos app on your iPhone can automatically look out for duplicate shots and lets you merge them. It’s especially handy for quickly discarding photos you may have taken in rapid succession or accidental lockscreen screenshots.
Delete your iMessage and other chat attachments
Delete your iMessage and other chat attachments
We receive a round-the-clock avalanche of attachments, like GIFs and funny clips, in our chat apps. And more often than not, we forget about them once we’ve seen them. Though on their own, a GIF or a short video won’t consume much storage, they can take up hundreds or thousands of your precious MBs over time.
Clear offline movies and videos from streaming apps
Clear offline movies and videos from streaming apps
You have no need for the offline movies or TV shows you downloaded on streaming apps once you’ve watched them. And unless you manually opted for low-quality downloads, each of those videos consumes at least half a GB of storage on your iPhone. Thankfully, Apple lets you remove and delete clips from all your streaming apps from a single location.
