- How to check the storage on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch
- How iOS and iPadOS optimize storage
- Use your device to check its storage
- Content categories
- Use recommendations to optimize storage
- Use the Finder or iTunes to check the storage on your iOS device
- About cached files in «Other»
- If storage on your device differs from what you see in the Finder or iTunes
- If you want to delete the cached files from your device
- Learn more
- iCloud storage is full: 7 tips on how to clear iCloud storage
- What is iCloud storage
- See what is taking space in iCloud
- Clearing iCloud storage
- Download and delete photos
- BONUS: Transfer the pictures you need from PC to iPhone
- Tranfer photos from PC to iPhone and back with CopyTrans Photo
- How to delete things from iCloud
- Extract and delete old iCloud backups
- How to reduce iCloud storage
- Delete files from iCloud Drive
- How to free up iCloud storage
- Clean your mailbox
- How to delete stuff from iCloud
- Save WhatsApp backups to PC
- How to clean up iCloud storage
- Organize contacts, calendars, notes, reminders
- Conclusion
- ❤ CopyTrans 7 Pack ❤
- Related articles
How to check the storage on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch
iOS and iPadOS monitor the storage on your device by analyzing how much space each app uses. You can also check the storage on your device in Settings, iTunes, or the Finder on your computer.
How iOS and iPadOS optimize storage
If your device is low on storage, it automatically frees up space while installing an app, updating iOS or iPadOS, downloading music, recording videos, and more.
To make more storage available, your device can remove some of your items, like streamed music and videos, files in iCloud Drive, and parts of apps that aren’t needed. It also removes temporary files and clears the cache on your device. But your device only removes items that can be downloaded again or that aren’t needed anymore.
Use your device to check its storage
Go to Settings > General > [Device] Storage. You might see a list of recommendations for optimizing your device’s storage, followed by a list of installed apps and the amount of storage each one uses. Tap an app’s name for more information about its storage. Cached data and temporary data might not be counted as usage.
In the detailed view you can:
- Offload the app, which frees up storage used by the app, but keeps its documents and data.
- Delete the app, which removes the app and its related data.
- Depending on the app, you might be able to delete some of its documents and data.
If your device is almost full and can’t free up space, you might get a Storage Almost Full alert. If you see this alert, you should check the storage recommendations or you need to offload some less-used content like videos and apps.
Content categories
The used content on your device is divided in these categories:
- Apps: Installed apps and their content, and content stored in «On My iPhone/iPad/iPod touch» directory in the Files app, and Safari downloads
- Photos: Photos and videos stored in the Photos app
- Media: Music, videos, podcasts, ringtones, artwork, and Voice Memos
- Mail: Emails and their attachments
- Apple Books: Books and PDFs in the Books app
- Messages: Messages and their attachments
- iCloud Drive: iCloud Drive content that has been downloaded locally to your device. This content can’t be automatically deleted.
- Other: Non-removable mobile assets, like Siri voices, fonts, dictionaries, non-removable logs and caches, Spotlight index, and system data, such as Keychain and CloudKit Database. Cached files can’t be deleted by the system.
- System: Space taken by the operating system. This can vary based on your device and model.
Use recommendations to optimize storage
In the Storage section of Settings, your device might offer recommendations for optimizing your storage. Tap Show All to see all the recommendations for your device.
Read the description of each recommendation, then tap Enable to turn it on or tap the recommendation to review the contents you can delete.
Use the Finder or iTunes to check the storage on your iOS device
- On a Mac with macOS Catalina 10.15 or later, open the Finder. On a Mac with macOS Mojave 10.14 or earlier, or on a PC, open iTunes.
- Connect your device to your computer.
- Select your device in the Finder or in iTunes. You’ll see a bar that shows how much storage your content uses, divided by content type.
- Move your mouse over the bar to see how much storage each content type is using.
Here’s a list of the types of content on your device, and what each type includes:
- Audio: Songs, audio podcasts, audiobooks, voice memos, and ringtones.
- Video: Movies, music videos, and TV shows.
- Photos: Content in your Photo Library, Camera Roll, and Photo Stream.
- Apps: Installed apps. The content of the apps is listed under Documents & Data.
- Books: iBooks books, audio books, and PDF files.
- Documents & Data: Safari Offline Reading List, files stored within installed apps, and app content like contacts, calendars, messages, and emails (and their attachments).
- Other: Settings, Siri voices, system data, and cached files.
About cached files in «Other»
The Finder and iTunes categorize cached music, videos, and photos as Other instead of actual songs, videos, or photos. Cached files are created when you stream or view content like music, videos, and photos. When you stream music or video, that content is stored as cached files on your device so you can quickly access it again.
Your device automatically removes cached files and temporary files when your device needs more space.
If storage on your device differs from what you see in the Finder or iTunes
Since the Finder and iTunes categorize cached files as Other, reported usage for Music or Videos might differ. To view usage on your device, go to Settings > General > [Device] Storage.
If you want to delete the cached files from your device
Your device automatically deletes cached files and temporary files when it needs more space. You don’t need to delete them yourself.
Learn more
- To reduce the size of your Photo library, turn on iCloud Photo Library and optimize your device storage.
- Optimize your music and videos storage in Settings > Music > Optimize Storage.
- Learn how iOS, iPadOS, and macOS report storage capacity.
Information about products not manufactured by Apple, or independent websites not controlled or tested by Apple, is provided without recommendation or endorsement. Apple assumes no responsibility with regard to the selection, performance, or use of third-party websites or products. Apple makes no representations regarding third-party website accuracy or reliability. Contact the vendor for additional information.
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iCloud storage is full: 7 tips on how to clear iCloud storage
Apple automatically gives 5Gb of free storage to every iCloud account, which doesn’t seem like enough at first, but if you play it smart, you can easily get by with just those free 5 GB. This article will help you reduce your iCloud storage so you can downgrade your iCloud storage plan and stop paying for iCloud. See our 7 tips on how to clear iCloud storage:
What is iCloud storage
See what is taking space in iCloud
iCloud storage lets you save all your photos, contacts, documents, text messages and much more sucurely and access them from any iOS device under the same Apple ID. When you set up iCloud, you automatically get 5 GB of storage.
To manage iCloud storage, first you should see what data you have there and how much space it’s taking up.
How to check iCloud storage? To do this, navigate to Settings> Apple ID> iCloud> Manage Storage. The data that typically take up a lot of iCloud storage space are:
- Photos
- Videos
- iCloud backups
- Email messages with attachments
- WhatsApp Backups
💡 Movies, apps, books, and music bought in iTunes will not count towards your iCloud storage. Photostream and the photos uploaded there don’t take any iCloud space because these images are stored locally on the device.
See what is causing you the most trouble and find a tip on how to clear iCloud storage!
Clearing iCloud storage
Download and delete photos
Why is my iCloud storage full? As a rule, clearing iCloud storage starts with photos as they use up a lot of cloud space. To reduce iCloud storage you use on photos, you can exclude them from iCloud backups and download your photos and videos to your PC. This way, your precious memories will always be at hand. You will then be able to delete all the photos and videos from your iCloud.
To help you, we have made a program called CopyTrans Cloudly. It will download all the photos in one go and allow you to settle the score with what’s still in your iCloud. You can download and try it here:
After you’ve done that, follow the steps:
- Exclude photos from iCloud Backup
To do this, go to Settings> Apple ID> iCloud> Manage Storage> Photos> Disable and Delete. Keep in mind that you won’t be able to restore your pictures from the iCloud backup later.
Back up all iCloud photos to the PC
You can do that in a few clicks with CopyTrans Cloudly. All the photos will be stored on your PC or external hard disk. If you need help, see this guide on how to download all the photos and videos from your iCloud to your PC.
Now erase all photos from iCloud to create even more iCloud storage space. If you don’t want the new photos to be uploaded to iCloud, you can disable your iCloud Photo Library. If the iCloud Photo Library is still enabled on your iPhone, your new photos will be uploaded to iCloud like before.
⭐ Advantages of CopyTrans Cloudly ⭐:
- Recover deleted iCloud photos
- Download all the iCloud photos in one click
- Keep quality, format, and structure
- Upload photos and videos from PC to iCloud in different formats
- Delete all the iCloud photos
Try CopyTrans Cloudly for free
BONUS: Transfer the pictures you need from PC to iPhone
If you want to transfer some of the images to your iPhone, use our CopyTrans Photo app to transfer these photos back to your iPhone. By using it in combination with CopyTrans Cloudly, you can truly become the master of your photos! Download and try it here:
After you’ve done it, transfer the photos to your PC fast and easily!
Tranfer photos from PC to iPhone and back
with CopyTrans Photo
❤ We currently have a great deal – you can get 75% off CopyTrans 7 Pack. It’s cheaper than buying just two programs 😉
How to delete things from iCloud
Extract and delete old iCloud backups
Another efficient way to clear iCloud storage is to delete old iCloud backups. To find information about your iCloud backups, go to Settings> Apple ID> iCloud> Manage Storage> Backup.
If your iCloud backups are starting to take too much space – simply extract the important data from them, delete the backups you no longer need and use an alternative backup solution!
- Extract the data from iCloud backups
Take this step if you are not sure what is inside your iCloud backup or it contains some data that you would like to retain. In this case, you can find and extract data from your iCloud backups with CopyTrans Backup Extractor.
After this, you will be prepared to erase old backups from your iCloud storage.
Delete old iCloud backups
Delete all your old iCloud backups – i.e. backups of the devices that you no longer have. To do this, Select the backup> Delete Backup> Disable & Delete. This is how to clean up iCloud storage in a few clicks.
Exclude apps from the backup
If you have iCloud backup enabled, every app you install will automatically be backed up. To change this, go to Settings> Apple ID> iCloud> Manage Storage> Backups and tap the icon of your device. Here you can manage iCloud storage: see which apps are included in your iCloud backup and how much space they take. Please note that if you restore this iCloud backup, the app data of the apps you excluded from the backup will no longer be there.
Secure iPhone files locally on the PC
Alternatively, you can create local iPhone backups on the PC with CopyTrans Shelbee.
✔ Your contacts, calendars, notes, SMS messages and iMessages, photos and videos, and settings and app documents will be included in the backup.
✔ You can also choose to back up to your PC to an external hard drive.
CopyTrans Shelbee will allow you to make validated backups to your PC which will further be available for full restore or restore of selected components. Also, this is going to be an encrypted backup stored on your PC and not in iCloud. Read our guide on how to restore iPhone without iTunes to learn more.
How to reduce iCloud storage
Delete files from iCloud Drive
You can also delete the files you have stored in iCloud Drive to get more iCloud storage. Go to Settings> Apple ID> iCloud> Manage Storage> iCloud Drive. You will see all the files stored in iCloud Drive. Swipe left and tap on the trash icon to delete the file.
To optimize iCloud storage, you can manage your documents, movies, and other data locally by transferring these files between your PC and iPhone, e.g., with CopyTrans Filey.
👍 Deleting heavy files from your iPhone will reduce its backup size and save space on your iCloud storage.
Most likely you have a lot of content you no longer need. It’s much easier to manage all those files from your PC rather than fish around in numerous apps on your iPhone where media files are probably scattered across different folders.
📌 With CopyTrans Filey you can browse through your files in a way that makes sense: find the heaviest, oldest, and latest ones with ease.
This program is a free simple tool to clean up your device by sorting all the app documents in one window by size, date or name and delete the largest ones.
Here you can see an example of sorting by size and then mass deleting.
How to free up iCloud storage
Clean your mailbox
If you use your iCloud address for your email, emails will also be backed up to your free 5GB of storage. You can delete unnecessary emails with large attachments to quickly get rid of several gigabytes and clear iCloud storage.
- Open the Mail app.
- Swipe left over an email and tap the trash button.
- Go to the Trash folder. Tap Edit, and then click Delete All.
How to delete stuff from iCloud
Save WhatsApp backups to PC
Nearly everyone has long WhatsApp chat histories which often include photos, videos and GIFs. With iCloud backup enabled for WhatsApp, a significant portion of your iCloud storage will be taken. You can, however, enjoy both conversation history safety and free iCloud if you save messages and your WhatsApp chat history on PC. For that purpose, we developed a specific app, CopyTrans Contacts. Download and try it here:
✔ CopyTrans Contacts will allow you to save full chats or chats for a specified period of time in DOC, PDF, TXT, RTF formats.
✔ It can export pictures and attachments to a separate folder on your PC.
After you’ve exported what you need, you can exclude WhatsApp from your iCloud backup with peace of mind.
How to clean up iCloud storage
Organize contacts, calendars, notes, reminders
Apple also stores calendars, contacts, and reminders on iCloud servers. These take so little space that Apple does not even show how much space they take.
However, if you do not want to trust your personal information such as contacts and notes to iCloud, use the same trick as with WhatsApp and manage them offline with CopyTrans Contacts.
⭐ Advantages of CopyTrans Contacts ⭐:
✔️ Transfer iPhone messages to PC in PDF, Word, Excel, TXT, CSV or HTML;
✔️ Save all attachments like photos, videos, GIFs, voice messages in a separate folder;
✔️ Export messages only from a specific time period;
✔️ Back up messages in just few clicks;
✔️ Enjoy an easy-to-use, intuitive interface.
After you’ve downloaded, see how to organize your contacts, calendars, notes and reminders. If you are just looking to back up your iPhone contacts, CopyTrans Contatcs will also help.
Conclusion
With the tips above, you can easily get by with the free 5GB of iCloud storage. By finding an alternative way to store your photos, videos, and backupsand backing up data locally, you can manage iCloud storage more efficiently and stop worrying about iCloud storage being full. Managing cloud storage has never been that easy!
If you have any suggestions on how to clear iCloud storage let us know in the comments section below.
❤ CopyTrans 7 Pack ❤
If you are interested in two or more solutions from our list, you might want to look at our combined application suite, CopyTrans 7 Pack. It will allow you to become the ultimate master of your iPhone by allowing you to manage your music, photos, contacts, calendars, notes, backups and much more.
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Irina is a marketing and tech-support specialist in charge of the English-speaking market, who dyes her hair in the color of her cats’ fur (future cat lady detected) and enjoys sitting on her balcony on a rainy day reading books, watching TV shows, playing video games and drinking hot chocolate. With marshmallows.
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