- Identify what’s really taking up storage on your device
- Clear cached data and old attachments safely
- Free up space without deleting important apps or photos
Even with generous storage options available, it’s easy for an iPhone or iPad to start feeling cramped. Apps, photos, messages, and cached data quietly build up over time, and before long you’re greeted with storage warnings at the worst possible moment.
Apple does provide a breakdown in Settings > General > iPhone Storage, but that view doesn’t always make it obvious what you can safely remove. Broad categories like “System Data” can be especially unhelpful. The good news is that there are several simple, low-risk ways to claw back space without deleting anything important – and that’s exactly what this guide will walk you through.
Clear out Safari’s cache
If you use Apple’s browser a lot, it’ll build up quite a bank of data and caches. Go to Settings > General > iPhone Storage and locate Safari. Tap on that and on the next page you’ll see the Website Data option. Open this up and it will show all the websites where Safari has saved elements for later. This can speed up repeat visits, at the expense of your storage. Luckily, there’s a Remove All Website Data button if you’d rather reclaim the space.
You can also do this for Offline Reading List and Downloads to clear up even more space, although if you don’t use those features much they might be empty already.
Review your Messages data and attachments
The Messages app can store a lot of data too. It makes sense to regularly review this data and manually delete what you don’t need.
You can do this by going to Settings > General > iPhone Storage > Messages > Review Large Attachments at the top. This will let you delete individual conversations or media, while the latter lets you easily remove the biggest offenders. You might have many gigabytes of space locked up storing video clips you sent years ago. Simply swipe left on any item you no longer need to easily delete it.
Optionally, you can enable Auto Delete Old Conversations, which automates this process in future for you, only keeping attachments for 12 months and then purging them.
Remove Mail cache
The Mail app can also build up quite a sizeable cache – but there’s a simple way to clear it. Not quite as simple as tapping a button, but almost. The method is to remove and then re-add your mail accounts.
Go to Settings > Account & Passwords then tap on your Email account, scroll down and tap Delete Account and then confirm Delete from my iPhone. Then all you have to do is tap Back and then add your account again.
These three tips will get you started, but you can also go through many apps manually to remove caches and downloaded data. Every app varies but many utilities have some form of function that will purge cached data. If not, you can always delete and redownload an app to ditch anything it saved since its initial installation. Good luck!