iPhone Storage is Full? (7 Must Things to Delete First )

Credit: Brittany Herbert

Two things on your iPhone will quickly run out: battery life and storage.

You can easily acquire more power by using a battery case or a portable battery pack or putting on Low Power Mode. It isn’t a good idea to increase your storage capacity. So, where do you begin?

Local storage is a premium for many individuals until they can afford the more expensive, higher-capacity handsets, with Apple still selling 16GB iPhones (shame on them!).

Putting your files in the cloud is one way to free up space on your iPhone, but you’ll only be able to view them if you’re connected to the internet. You’ll need to pay for the storage space as well.

SEE ALSO: How to Use iPhone Text Messages Effects on Your iPhone

iPhone Storage is Full?

You’ll need to get rid of some items to free up space on your phone. But don’t worry: if you do it correctly, you won’t even notice what you’ve taken away. Here are seven must things you should delete if your iPhone Storage is Full.

Delete images is one of the simplest ways to free up space on your iPhone. Manually downloading photographs to your computer or backing them up to the cloud is another way to ensure you don’t lose anything. Google Images is a terrific free service that lets you back up all your high-resolution iPhone images and videos (up to 1080p).

Start by reading our article on how to get all of your photographs into Google Photos if you need help with Google Photos.

If you don’t want to keep many photographs on your phone, you can still clean it up. Begin by eliminating any images you don’t need, such as screenshots, selfies, and smeared photos.

DELETE THEM ALL. Credit: Screenshot: Raymond Wong

In iOS 9, screenshots, selfies, and bursts are saved in dedicated folders (Photos > Albums > Selfies/Screenshots/Bursts). Get in there and wipe them out.

If you have an Apple Watch, you may have accidentally discovered many screenshots on your iPhone. Delete the Apple Watch screenshots as well.

While you’re removing duplicates, you can also delete any copies of your Instagram photos. Instagram automatically saves all of your photos and videos after you’ve submitted them (Photos > Albums > Instagram). 

If you don’t want original copies of images to be stored on your iPhone, go to the Instagram app’s Options button (gear), scroll down, and switch off “Save Original Photos.”

2. Delete ‘Recently Deleted’

Credit: Screenshot: Mashable

Also, starting with iOS 8, deleting photographs and videos does not remove them from your device for 30 days. Photos and movies that have been deleted are transferred to the “Recently Deleted” folder. Apple did this to allow you to recover media that you may have erased by accident.

It’s a fantastic idea, but they’re still consuming space on your iPhone until they expire.

To permanently delete them, go to (Photos > Albums > Recently Deleted) and pick all of the files you wish to delete, then touch “Delete” in the lower right corner.

3. Remove old iMovie projects

iMovie (and many other video editing software) are indispensable for video editing (like these stunning timelapse). These apps create “video projects” in the same way as desktop video editing programs do when you edit a new video.

When you’ve finished editing videos, it’s best to delete these projects so they don’t take up space after you’ve finished. Video projects can be costly, including many clips, audio tracks, transition effects, and text.

4. Banish 4K video

Credit: Apple

You can take a 4K video with an iPhone 6S or 6S Plus, four times the resolution of 1080p full HD video. That’s an absurdly high amount of pixels.

4K video recording isn’t enabled by default, but if you decide to do so, keep in mind that the files will be larger than usual.

File sizes that are more significant take up more space on your iPhone. It’s a good idea to copy 4K videos to a computer or delete them totally once you’ve shared them online.

It’ll be hard to say goodbye to such good movies, but you won’t be able to appreciate all that extra quality on your iPhone’s screen either; 4K footage requires a larger 4K monitor.

5. Dump your music files

People prefer streaming music services like Apple Music, Spotify, and Tidal to buy music, which I never expected to see.

With streaming music services, your music is stored in the cloud and is usually only accessible when you’re connected to the internet. Although most people no longer do so, you can select to download specific songs to listen to offline.

If you can’t remember when you last listened to your music downloads, now is a perfect moment to go through and delete your iPhone’s music files. The vast majority of them, at the very least.

6. Manage your email apps

Many of us have tried a variety of email systems. Many email apps sync and download your whole inbox, allowing you to view it even while you’re not connected to the internet.

You don’t need a plethora of different email clients. Reduce the number of email clients you use and delete the others. Combining many email accounts into a single email app is much better.

You only need one email app. Pick one and delete the rest. Credit: Screenshot: Raymond Wong

Outlook is a highly regarded program. The Gmail app and Apple’s default Mail app, on the other hand, are both fantastic.

If you can’t seem to get rid of an email app, double-check which accounts are linked to it. There’s no reason to have your primary email address synchronized in two or three email programs at once, wasting space and reducing battery life.

7. Use this strange iTunes movie rental trick

Software is peculiar. In March, Redditoreavesdroppingyou figured out a way to clear up storage space.

To work, your iPhone must have less than 1GB of free space. Then you rent a movie from iTunes that takes up more space than you have, and then it suddenly disappears.

In just five minutes, attempting to rent a movie a few times brought this iPhone from 890MB of available storage to 3.9GB. Credit: Screenshot: Mashable

So, what exactly is happening here? That is undeniable. This isn’t magic. To make place for the “important” iTunes movies, your iPhone is most likely deleting old cached files, cookies, and histories because anything you buy from Apple’s digital stores is, of course, a high priority!

BONUS: Wait for iOS 10

iOS 10, which will be available in the fall, is jam-packed with new features. There will be a few that will clean up and clear up space on your iPhone as well.

Many of Apple’s stock apps will be removed from your phone at some point. Although this isn’t a total eradication, hiding them implies you’ll no longer require this folder:

Credit: Raymond Wong

A new “Optimize Storage” option deletes music you haven’t listened to and replaces high-resolution photos with lower-resolution versions:

Credit: Screenshot: Apple