How to Free Up Storage Space on Your iPhone

When the iPhone says storage is full, start in Settings and read the list before you delete a photo library or an app you still use. The storage screen shows which items are large. Guessing from the home screen does not.

Open iPhone Storage

1. Open Settings.
2. Tap General.
3. Tap iPhone Storage.
4. Wait until the colored bar and the list of apps finish loading. On a full phone this can take a minute.

The recommendations under the bar are suggestions. You can ignore one. Open an app in the list when you want to see how much space that app reports.

Offload is not the same as delete

Apple may offer Offload Unused Apps. Read the wording on the button you tap.

Action	What happens
Offload	Removes the app and is meant to keep its documents. You download the app again from the App Store with the same Apple ID.
Delete app	Removes the app. Data stored only inside that app can go with it.

Do not offload an app you need on a plane or in a building with no network. Reinstalling requires a connection and enough free space for the download, which is a poor moment to discover the phone is still full.

If Notes holds scans you care about, do not delete Notes to chase a small amount of space. Those scans live in the notes. The scan guide shows how a PDF is stored in a note. Open Notes from the storage list and delete old notes you have already saved elsewhere.

Photos, Recently Deleted, and iCloud

Photos is often the largest item.

• Tap Photos in the storage list if you want Apple’s review of large items.
• Deleted photos sit in Recently Deleted for about 30 days. Empty that album only when you are sure you do not want them. Emptying it removes those items sooner.
• If iCloud Photos is on, Optimize iPhone Storage can keep smaller copies on the phone and store full-size photos in iCloud. That frees device space. It does not delete the originals from iCloud.

Turn on Optimize only if you are willing to need a network connection to download a full-size photo later. If iCloud itself is full, optimizing the phone will not give you a new place to put the originals.

Messages and Files

Messages stores photos and videos inside conversations.

1. In iPhone Storage, tap Messages if it appears.
2. Review the largest conversations.
3. Delete an attachment or a thread only if you do not need it. There is no general undo for a deleted conversation.

In the Files app, open Downloads and remove installers or exports you already used. A video you saved there counts even if you also have it in Photos.

What not to do first

• Don’t erase the phone because one app is large. Erase All Content and Settings removes the device copy of your data.
• Don’t delete an app from the home screen until you have read whether you are offloading or deleting.
• Don’t buy more iCloud space only to ignore a 20 GB app you no longer open. Look at the list first, then decide if you need more cloud space.

After you remove something, go back to iPhone Storage and let the bar refresh. The free number updates when the list reloads, not always the instant you tap delete.