It took Apple until 2021 to realize that 64GB of storage was too low, to begin with, on the iPhone. While the iPhone 13 series starts at 128GB, millions of iPhone users are stuck with half the space. With RAW photos, 4K video recording, and hundreds of apps from the App Store, it's easy to fill up storage space. Here's how to free up space on your iPhone without deleting apps.
The easiest way to free up space on your iPhone is to delete irrelevant apps and games. But what if there are no more apps or games on your iPhone that can be removed? In that case, you'll need to make adjustments from elsewhere. And that's exactly what we'll cover in this post.
1. Enable Media Backup for iCloud
Is your iPhone full of photos and videos? You may be able to delete irrelevant photos/videos from your iPhone, but what about the precious memories left behind? You should upload them to iCloud and enable Optimize iPhone Storage. Here's how.
Step 1: Go to the Settings app on your iPhone.
Step 2: Open your profile menu and go to iCloud.
Before enabling media for iCloud, make sure you have enough iCloud storage space. If your iCloud storage space is low, you can subscribe to a higher iCloud+ plan.
Step 3: Go to the Photos menu and enable the iCloud Photos toggle.
Step 4: From the same menu, you should select Optimize iPhone Storage.
If your iPhone is running low on storage space, full-resolution photos and videos will automatically be replaced with smaller, more compact versions. Users can download full-resolution versions from iCloud at any time.
2. Use Google Photos or ONEDRIVE to free up space on your iPhone
If you're not heavily invested in the Apple ecosystem and prefer Google or Microsoft's cloud storage service, you can upload media to Google Photos or OneDriveBoth apps are available from the App Store.
After uploading the relevant media files to Google Photos or OneDrive, you will have to delete the photos/videos from the Photos app manually.
3. Remove video downloads from streaming apps
Apps like Netflix, Prime Video, YouTube, and more allow users to download videos for offline use. You can either go into each app and delete saved videos from the downloads list, or use the settings menu to view them all at once.
We'll follow any of the tricks as long as they get the job done in less time. Follow these steps.
Step 1: Open Netflix or Prime Video on your iPhone.
Step 2: Go to the downloads list.
Step 3: Remove unnecessary videos from the app.
Repeat the same steps for Prime Video, YouTube, and other video streaming apps on your iPhone.
4. Delete music downloads from music apps
If you are always connected to a high-speed Wi-Fi network, you don't need to download/save videos to your iPhone storage.
Saving hundreds of tracks from Apple Music or Spotify can reduce storage space on your iPhone. You need to remove music downloaded from these apps to save storage on your iPhone. Let's take Spotify as an example.
Step 1: Open Spotify for iPhone.
Step 2: Go to your library.
Step 3: Check the downloaded playlists from the list.
Step 4: Tap the More menu and select Remove downloads from the bottom menu.
Repeat the steps for other music streaming apps like Amazon Music or YouTube Music, as you look to free up some precious space on your iPhone.
5. Change the image format in the camera to free up space on your iPhone
To reduce file size, newer iPhone models capture photos in the HEIF format. However, it's not the most compatible file format. You may have changed it to the most compatible format from the camera settings menu.
However, the change will result in nearly double the image sizes on your iPhone. You'll need to switch back to a high-efficiency file format to save space.
Step 1: Open the Settings app on the iPhone.
Step 2: Scroll down to Camera.
Step 3: Go to Formats.
Step 4: Select High Efficiency from the following list.
Keep in mind that this will take up less space when taking photos from your iPhone and will not free up any space.
6. Change video quality to free up space on your iPhone
This is another way to ensure that you don't consume too much storage space while recording video.
Open the Settings app and go to the Camera menu. From the Video Recording menu, check the multiple resolutions and how much space they take up on your iPhone. If you don't need 4K at 60 fps, you can switch to 1080p at 60 fps or 4K at 30 fps.
Free up some space on your iPhone
Your iPhone requires ample space to run smoothly and download the latest iOS update. If the installed apps and games are useful, you can follow the steps above to free up space on your iPhone.
