A full iPhone storage can quickly become a nuisance – sluggish responses, constant “storage almost full” notifications, and no room for new photos or apps. But don’t worry: with the right steps, you can clear your iPhone storage and protect it in the long run.
An overloaded iPhone storage isn’t just annoying; it can significantly impact your device’s performance, security, and reliability. We’ll show you how to free up your iPhone storage and delete junk files to create more space. Avira Mobile Security for iOS helps you declutter your device sustainably – simply, effectively, and without losing important data.
Why it’s important to clean up your iPhone storage regularly
An overloaded storage slows down loading times, causes apps to crash, and leaves no room for new photos, videos, or updates. It can also lead to security vulnerabilities and system instability. By regularly cleaning up your iPhone storage, you not only free up space but also improve system performance.
iPhone cache, photos, and friends: The biggest storage hogs
Photos, videos, apps, and system data occupy most of the storage on your iPhone. Temporary files, caches, and duplicate media accumulate over time, slowing down the system. Often, simply restarting your iPhone can help. This clears the cache and removes unused system data clutter.
- Media files: A large portion of storage is often consumed by photos, videos, and audio files. Of course, many of these personal files are ones you’d prefer to keep on your device.
- App storage: Many iPhone users aren’t aware that apps can clog their phone with online data. This is often due to the way iOS apps are designed. Social media apps like Instagram or the Safari browser, for example, store large amounts of data in the background.
- Other, iOS, and system data: A third category of files that can overload your iPhone storage is system data (referred to as Other in older iOS versions). These include a mix of caches, logs, Siri voices, and more, which can quickly add up to several gigabytes. The result? A painfully slow iPhone.
If your iPhone remains sluggish even after a restart, it’s worth investigating the cause further.
Check iPhone storage: How to identify storage hogs
In the iPhone Storage section of your iPhone settings, you’ll find a detailed breakdown of your storage usage and can identify large storage hogs.
Here’s how to check your storage:
- Open Settings > General > iPhone Storage.
- The overview displays the storage usage for individual apps and offers optimisation recommendations.
- Further down, you’ll see which apps and files are using the most storage, allowing you to remove unnecessary content.
- For some apps (like Instagram), the only way to clear out data clutter is to delete and reinstall them via the App Store. Others hide this option within their app settings.
- Go through the list: Which apps take up an unusually high amount of “Documents & Data” storage compared to their app size? These might be worth optimising.
Note: Deleting large apps may also remove personalised settings. To avoid losing them, consider creating a manual backup first. For more information, see back up your iPhone.
How can I clean up my iPhone storage? Step-by-step guide
To clean up your iPhone storage efficiently, it’s best to proceed step by step: start by deleting unnecessary media files and apps. Then, dive into system services and background settings. Don’t worry, it’s quick and easy—just follow this guide.
Step 1: Get rid of clutter – how to delete media and unused apps
Photos, videos, and apps are often the biggest storage hogs. Here are some simple steps to manage them effectively and clean up your iPhone storage:
Delete photos and videos:
- The more modern the iPhone, the higher the resolution of its photos and videos—and the more storage they consume. Open the Photos app and regularly delete shots you no longer need.
- Regularly transfer your photos and videos to the cloud or external storage, and then delete them from your device.
- Be mindful of a unique iPhone feature: deleted files remain on the device temporarily. Follow these steps to permanently remove them:
- Open the Photos app and tap Albums. Scroll down to find the Recently Deleted
- Open it, tap Select at the top, and then tap the three dots next to Select Items.
- Tap Delete All at the bottom-right corner to permanently remove all files from the trash.
- The iPhone offers automatic storage optimisation for photos. With this handy method, you can save storage space without giving up your photos:
- Go to Settings > Photos.
- Enable Optimise iPhone Storage to store smaller versions of your photos while keeping the originals in iCloud.
- The Photos app also allows you to delete duplicate photos on your iPhone:
- Scroll down to the Other section and tap on Duplicates (this will only appear if duplicate photos or videos are detected).
- Tap Merge to combine duplicates, and then tap Merge Items. One version will be kept, and the rest will be moved to the trash.
- Check the settings of any apps that use media. There are often options here to clean up iPhone storage.
- For example, in WhatsApp, it’s set by default to download your photos – you can simply disable this and clear the storage. Don’t worry, the media will remain in the chat and you can easily re-download it when needed.
Remove or offload unused apps:
A simple way to clean up your iPhone storage is by regularly deleting your unused apps. Here’s how to do it in the settings:
- Go to Settings > General > iPhone Storage, select an app you rarely use, and tap Offload App. The app will be removed from the iPhone, but all data will remain, so you can easily restore it when reinstalling the app later.
- Handy: In the Recommendations section, you can enable automatic offloading, which will offload unused apps automatically when storage space is running low.
- Tip: Also in the Recommendations section, you’ll find the option Review Downloaded Videos and Audio Files. Here, you can delete forgotten streaming downloads in one go.
Step 2: Disable iPhone system services and background updates
System and background services not only consume storage but also use mobile data and battery power. Many of these services are often unnecessary and can be disabled.
Find and turn off iOS system services:
- Go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services, then scroll down to System Services.
- The following system services can be safely disabled to extend battery life:
- Apple Pay Merchant ID: This concerns the physical Apple Card, which is not available in Germany. You can safely disable this option.
- Motion Calibration & Distance: If you don’t use an Apple Watch for fitness activities or have good GPS coverage, you can turn off this service.
- Device Management: If your iPhone is not managed by an organisation, you don’t need this service.
- Siri Suggestions: If you don’t use location-based shortcuts, you can turn off this feature.
- HomeKit: Turn off this option if you don’t use location-based HomeKit automations.
- Compass Calibration: Users of Apple Maps can turn this off, but Google Maps users may need this for directional accuracy.
- Cellular Network Search: The purpose of this service is unclear, and many users report that disabling it causes no issues.
- Share My Location (in System Services): This service doesn’t need to be activated in order to share your location in apps like Find My or Messages.
- Suggestions & Search: Can be disabled as Apple uses your IP address for location-based suggestions when this function is turned off.
- Set Time Zone: There’s no need to keep this option always active. Turn it on only if you’re travelling to a new time zone.
These adjustments help to extend battery life without significantly limiting the functionality of the device.
Find and turn off iOS background app refresh:
Background app refresh can be very useful. It ensures that apps like WhatsApp can continuously fetch messages and that your iPhone always shows the current weather.
However, apps with this permission stay online constantly, searching for updates. In many cases, apps use this function only to send you notifications.
For rarely used apps or those where having the most up-to-date status upon opening is sufficient, it’s worth turning off background app refresh. This saves battery and makes your iPhone faster. Here’s how:
- Open Settings > General > Background App Refresh.
- Turn off the refresh for apps you rarely use, or disable background app refresh completely.
- You can also choose to have your apps update in the background only when connected to Wi-Fi.
- Tip: If your list of installed apps is very long, first turn off background app refresh entirely, then turn it back on for the apps you want individually.
Step 3: How to clear the cache on iPhone? Clear Safari cache and more
Caches and temporary files from apps and browsers often take up a lot of storage space. Here’s how to delete cache and cookies from iPhone, Safari, and other apps:
- Clear cache on iPhone: If the storage usage of the aforementioned system data (or Other) in Settings > General > iPhone Storage still appears very high after all the steps, a backup might be necessary. This is because the iPhone locally stores a collection of temporary data that a backup will release.
- Clear Safari cache: Browsers generally consume a lot of memory, and Safari is no exception. First, close unnecessary tabs and then clear the Safari cache:
- Open Settings > Safari.
- If you want to delete all website data (including Safari cookies) along with your browsing history, tap Clear History and Website Data
- If you want to keep your browser history, tap Advanced at the bottom, then Website Data and then tap Remove All Website Data. This will clear the cache while keeping your browsing history intact.
- Clear cache of other browsers: Other browsers like Chrome also appear in the settings list, but you will not find an option to delete website data there. In this case, open the app and tap on History. Most browsers offer the option to clear history and cache at this point. And while you’re at it, why not clear the cache of your desktop browsers too?
- Clear cache of other apps: Some apps offer their own cache-clearing function in their settings. Alternatively, you can delete the app and reinstall it to remove the cache.
More tips for storage optimisation
In addition to the steps described, there are other ways to reduce storage usage:
- Automatically delete messages: In Settings > Messages, you can set old messages to be automatically deleted after 30 days.
- Permanently delete emails: As with photos, deleted emails in the Apple Mail app remain in the trash for a few weeks and take up storage space. In the advanced settings, you can permanently delete unwanted emails and spam from your iPhone storage.
- Optimise Spotlight search and Siri settings: Spotlight search and Siri take up storage as they regularly index content. You can disable indexing for rarely used apps to clean up your iPhone storage:
- Go to Settings > Siri & Search.
- Disable Spotlight Search and Siri for apps that you do not use frequently.
Clean iPhone storage for better performance and more space
A well-organised iPhone not only works faster but is also safer and more reliable. Regularly deleting unnecessary files, disabling background services, and clearing the cache helps keep the device clean and efficient.
The free app Avira Mobile Security for iOS, with its built-in cleaner, automatically optimises storage cleaning and protects the iPhone from security risks and malware. Additionally, with the integrated free VPN, you can surf anonymously and securely.