How much space is left on your iOS device? Do you hit a wall every time you try to update your operating system or download new apps? What's the best way to move the files you want to keep to free up space? And how do you make smart decisions about what to keep and what to delete? Follow these simple steps, and you'll be on your way to a less cluttered, more organized iPhone or iPad.

Check your total usage

First, assess how much space you have. Go to Settings > General > [device] Storage. At the top, you'll see a colored bar chart that shows how much space certain categories of apps take up on your device.

You don't need to deeply understand these numbers. To update iOS, you need a maximum of 6 GB of free space. If you just want enough free space to be able to take new photos and install new apps without fear of hitting an obstacle, give yourself at least 2 GB of free space.

Note that when you add up your available space and used space, the sum does not add up to the total size of your phone's storage. This is because the space used by the operating system is not taken into account.

Find apps taking up the most space

If you keep scrolling down under Storage you'll see a list of all your apps, in order of space they consume.

Select an app and a new page shows usage in two parts: the amount of space used by the app itself (in light gray at the top) and the space used by the app's data and documents. the app. For example, the Podcasts app shown takes up 1.63 GB in total: 25.3 MB for the app and 1.6 GB for documents and data (i.e. all those podcasts).

Sometimes this information helps you see that it's not the app that's taking up space, but rather what you're storing in it. In this case, you may find that podcast episodes and posts with lots of photos take up most of your device space. In the case of podcasts, episodes can be quickly removed from this menu by swiping left.

Target apps you don't use

Delete them

On the device storage page, find apps you don't use, touch them and select Delete app. Any purchased app can always be redownloaded at no additional cost from the App Store.

To remove apps from the home screen, place your finger on an app you want to remove and hold it. Apps start wiggling and a small minus symbol appears on each icon. Tap on it, then confirm to delete. To stop swaying, tap the home button on devices that have it, or tap Done in the top right on those that don't.

Offload them

If you want to temporarily disable an app without deleting its settings, such as when you need to free up space to install an iOS update, Apple lets you offload them . They'll stay on your home screen, but you'll have to tap to redownload to get back to them. Find the app in the storage list, tap it, then select Offload app.

You can also set up automatic removal of apps you don't use often. Go to Settings > App Store > Unload unused applications and activate it.

Check your photos and videos usage

The Photos app often takes up a lot more space than people think, so let's get straight to that app. Under Settings > General > [device] Storage, find Photos to see how much storage it is using. If you have more than 1GB, you should consider copying your photos and videos to a cloud storage service so you can delete them from your device.

If you have a Google account, an easy to use option is Google Photos. Download the app, sign in, and tap your account icon in the top right. Select Google Photos Settings > Backup & ; synchronization and enable the Backup and synchronization option. Make sure Google Photos has access to Photos (Settings > Google Photos > Photos > All Photos) and then every photo you take with your device will be automatically saved to Google Photos when you are online and accessible on all your devices and on the web.

Google previously offered unlimited photo storage through Google Photos, but that offer is no longer valid. Plan accordingly, as photo and video downloads count against your Google Account storage. If you're a Prime member, Amazon Photos still offers unlimited downloads; Here are some other alternatives.

Once the iPhone photos are uploaded to your cloud service of choice, double-check and triple-check that they're there, then delete them from the Photos app. Google Photos will even delete them for you as they are uploaded, if you trust that option. Then navigate to Albums > Recent deletion. Tap Select, then tap Delete All at the bottom. If you skip this last step, you won't free up space for a month, because your iOS device keeps deleted photos for 30 days, in case you change your mind.

You can also choose to keep low resolution photos on your phone and leave full resolution photos in iCloud. Go to Settings > Pictures > Optimize iPhone storage and make sure the box is checked. (iCloud Photos must be enabled).

Photo Stream is a seamless way to share photos between iOS devices. Turn it on on your Apple devices, and whenever they're on the same Wi-Fi network, photos taken on one device, like your iPhone, will appear on others, like your iPad.

It's a handy feature, but Apple allows up to 25,000 My Photo Stream downloads per month, which can consume space. If storing your photos on one device is enough for you, turn Photo Stream off by going to Settings > Pictures > My Photo Stream and turn it off.

Delete unwanted music

Multimedia like audio tracks and videos take up a lot of space. There are two ways to delete audio files and videos in Apple Music app/service.

From Settings

Go to Settings > General > [device] Storage > Music. At the bottom, you'll find a summary of all the music stored on your phone. Delete albums or tracks you don't listen to by swiping left. You can also use the Edit button to delete multiple tracks and albums at once.

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From the Apple Music app

Open the Music app. Go to Library > Downloaded where you will see music that is stored locally and taking up space. To delete an entire album, long press it and a pop-up menu will offer you a delete option. Delete from library option. You can do the same for specific songs in an album; tap the three-dot menu and select Delete.

If you want to put the music back on your device, open the Music app and tap Library. Find the song or album you want and re-download it by tapping the cloud arrow icon on the right.

Think about streaming

If you want to have thousands of titles, use a streaming system. music streaming service like Spotify (or Apple Music). If you're a Spotify Premium subscriber, however, keep an eye on how much information you download for offline use. Storing all those playlists on your device can also consume space.

Unless you like hanging on to conversations for sentimental (or legal) reasons, delete all messages like "I'm late" or "what do you want for dinner" for free up space. You free up even more space if you send videos, photos, and audio files through Messages.

If you like living dangerously, set texts to be automatically deleted. Go to Settings > Posts > Message history and choose to keep messages for 30 days or up to a year.

Clear your browser cache

The cache of the Safari web browser or other mobile web browsers you use is another piece of garbage to clear from your iPhone or iPad. For Safari, go to Settings > Safari. Tap Clear history and website data.

For Chrome on iOS, open the app, tap the three dots in the lower right corner and select History. Then tap Clear browsing data to clear everything or Edit to clear specific sites. You can also navigate to Settings > Privacy > Clear Browsing Data which will allow you to delete browsing history, cookies and site data, cached images and files, saved passwords and autofill data, or all at once. To learn more, read How to clear your cache on any browser.

A note about ‘Other’.

Even after all of this, you may still be trying to find space. That's when you notice it: Other. The category is under your device's storage settings, in a light gray box. What makes up the Other category? So many things, but mostly cache. The cache of images and videos in texts, music and video streaming, and browser activity, among other things.

Although you cannot eliminate this other, you can reduce it. Go to Settings > General and review your apps that have the most data. If your streaming or other apps take up a few gigabytes and you haven't downloaded anything from those services, uninstall the apps and reinstall them. This will clear the cache.

You may be able to get rid of some cached items directly, if you come across a Review downloaded videos on this page. By clicking on it, you will see the cached videos, which you can delete one by one. You can also see Review large attachments which will show you, file by file, images, videos, PDFs and other items that have been cached in Messages. These files appear in the order of the space they occupy and you can delete them one by one.