Your iPhone Storage Is Full Again. Do This to Reclaim Space.
How to deal with photos and software updates that are eating up gigabytes
By Nicole Nguyen
Jan. 12, 2025 5:30 am ET
Call it iPhone Storage Creep. As cameras get better, the photos and videos they capture get bigger. Software updates are increasing in size, too.
The latest iOS 18.2 upgrade requires 7 gigabytes for newer phones that support Apple AAPL -2.41%decrease; red down pointing triangle Intelligence—nearly double the earlier iOS 18.1 update. More bulky features are due in future releases.
Most iPhones start with 128 GB, which is fine if you haven’t amassed too much digital stuff over the years. You could upgrade to a new phone with more storage, adding $100 to $500 to the cost. Or you could follow this recipe: Find and delete storage hogs on your phone, then minimize the impact of the files you want to keep.
Once iPhone 15 Pro or iPhone 16 owners opt into Apple Intelligence, those 7 GB are here to stay—even if you disable the AI features. There are plenty of other areas on your phone to declutter, however. Here’s how.
Identify what’s taking up space
To clear space on your iPhone, the first stop is your settings. (Just remember, this is the device’s internal storage. My colleague Cordilia James wrote a helpful guide for managing cloud storage.)
Go to Settings > General > iPhone Storage. The page includes a graph showing what’s taking up space and recommendations of low-hanging fruit to pluck, like large Messages attachments. The Photos app likely takes up a big chunk, so keep reading for tips on managing that storage.
Next, scroll down and look at your largest apps. You can often tap on the name and clear data (e.g., old podcast episodes) right from this page. You can delete unnecessary apps, too, by swiping left on the name.
If you’re stumped by an app’s size, open the app itself for clues. WhatsApp is huge on my phone—but it has a helpful in-app feature to delete large files or entire chats.
The culprit could also be cached data, information the app saves to speed up performance. Instagram may download some profile pictures in the background, so you don’t have to wait for those elements to load when you open the app. You can clear the cache by deleting and re-downloading the app.
The built-in Safari browser has a cache, too. Go to Settings > Safari and look for Clear History. Just remember: You might have to log back into some websites after purging it.
Photos: Back up and delete
The most common storage offender is Photos. There are a few features built into the Photos app that can help you reduce the size of your library, such as removing duplicates and deleting photos.
In Photos, scroll down to Utilities and tap Duplicates. (If you have none, you won’t see this menu.) Merge to get rid of redundant copies.
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Next on your iPhone decluttering journey: taking out the trash. Apple holds on to deleted photos and videos for 30 days. To permanently trash them, scroll down to Utilities and open Recently Deleted.
If you sync your Photos app with iCloud, turn on the Optimize iPhone Storage setting to store the full-resolution version in the cloud and keep a lower-res copy locally. If you have a big library, even optimized storage can take up dozens of gigabytes, so iCloud isn’t a great long-term solution.
A nuclear option would be to back up your photos and then delete them from your phone. Don’t use iCloud for this, because deleting even a low-res copy on your iPhone will remove the full-quality version from iCloud. Better to try Google Photos or Amazon Photos.
Google Photos (starting at $30 a year for 200 GB) uploads your library automatically in the background. There’s a button to free up space on your iPhone once the media is safely in Google’s cloud.
Google Photos is best for the nuclear option: backing up your library and deleting all photos and videos from your phone. There’s a button to free up space once the media is stored in Google’s cloud.
Google Photos is best for the nuclear option: backing up your library and deleting all photos and videos from your phone. There’s a button to free up space once the media is stored in Google’s cloud.
Amazon Prime members get unlimited Amazon Photos storage for no additional cost—with a caveat. You can upload as many photos as you want, but video storage is limited to 5 GB. Extra space starts at $20 a year for 100 GB.
Three tricks for storage success
Here are more ways to stop apps from monopolizing your storage.
Compress camera captures: In Camera settings, select the High Efficiency option, to reduce the sizes of photos and videos you take moving forward.
Auto-delete messages: In Messages settings, limit your chat history. If you want to save these conversations, you can export your full chat history with the Mac app iMazing ($60 for three devices).
Offload unused apps: In Settings > App Store, scroll down and turn on Offload Unused Apps. This uninstalls forgotten apps. Tapping on the app icon reloads it.
These steps won’t prevent you from accumulating more data on your phone, but they will delay iPhone Storage Creep—and your next purge.
Write to Nicole Nguyen at nicole.nguyen@wsj.com
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