Sure, storage holds all of your treasured memories on your iPhone. It can also ruin a split-second chance of snapping that perfect pic or downloading a crucial document. It’s easy to fill up and most often a total pain to clear out. So, how do you unclog your phone?
In honor of National Simplify Your Life Week, here’s five helpful tricks to keep your storage afloat without losing the important stuff.
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Let go of old texts.
It’s hard to let go of certain things, especially texts. One never knows when they’ll have to scroll back into their messages for something. However, these texts take up a serious amount of storage in your iPhone. To switch off the “Forever” option for texts, simply go to Settings > Messages > Keep Messages. Here, you can choose from “30 Days”, “1 Year” or “Forever”.
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Filter out your photos.
These are usually the first to go when the annoying running-out-of-storage notice pops up. Instead of hastily deleting your recent photos, try a few other alternatives. Instagram and photo editing apps create their own albums in your library, often duplicating photos and taking up space. If you’re looking to free up more storage, delete any duplicate photos or iMessage photos and turn off your Photo Streaming.
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Delete your browser history (yes, really).
Clearing up your data and cookies in your settings can truly alleviate some of the bulk that is slowing down your iPhone. To clear your browser history, go to Settings > Safari > and tap “Clear History and Website Data”. This isn’t the top storage-saving approach, but it will still help with clearing up space and improving the speed of your iPhone.
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Clean up your apps.
There was a time on iPhone that the stagnant iOS apps remained permanently on the home screen. With more recent updates, it’s now possible to delete these apps along with others you may rarely touch. To check the apps you aren’t using often, go to Settings > General > Storage & iCloud Usage > Manage Storage > [YourName]’s iPhone. This is where you can keep an eye on the amount of data and storage that all of your apps are utilizing.
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Other de-cluttering options.
There are a few more tricks to a cleaner and faster iPhone. One way is taking the first tip mentioned and applying it to your emails as well, completed through Settings > Mail. Additionally, you can clear out your recently used apps that remain running by double tapping the home button and swiping each open app upwards.
Need to free up space outside of your phone? Check out our post on how to de-clutter your tech life. We also offer a large inventory of large GB model phones on our website for much less than the retail price tag.