Regardless of the storage space on your iPhone, most of us are familiar with the headache of running out of room. That’s where Apple’s free storage comes in: when you set up iCloud, you get an additional 5GB of free storage. This sounds like a lot, of course—until you’ve filled it up!
When you need extra space on your device, there’s only one way to get it: purging your files. Going through old data to remove unwanted photos, apps, and attachments is the only thing that will help you reclaim your phone but what’s the best way to do it?
Here are the best iCloud management tips to keep in mind.
Check What’s Hogging the Space
First things first: one of the most essential iCloud storage tips is knowing how to tell what’s eating up your storage. On most devices, you’ll do this by going to Settings, then to Apple ID, then iCloud, and finally Manage Storage. The most common culprits in terms of storage hogs tend to be videos and photos, iCloud backups, text messages, and email message attachments.
Sort Through your Photo Library
Before you start deleting essential items, you may be able to free up extra space by deleting duplicate photos—which tend to pop up on virtually any device. Finding these iCloud duplicates isn’t hard, and it frees up valuable storage space in a flash.
From there, you’ll need to sort through your albums to delete any unwanted iCloud photos by hand. Keep in mind, however, that you’ll have to do a second, more permanent deletion by purging your Recently Deleted album. Otherwise, you’ll see no change in your available iCloud storage space.
Delete Email Attachments
Email attachments guzzle up a huge amount of space if you aren’t careful, and most of us forget they exist the minute we’ve finished reading the email. If you want to hunt down all of those mammoth email attachments, you can do so in iCloud Mail. In the View section, select Sort by Attachments. This allows you to see which emails have attachments, and you can even sort by a specific file size to delete larger attachments.
Exclude Photo Storage from iCloud
If you’re trying to free up a lot of space—or if you subscribe to a photo storage service that’s separate from iCloud storage—you may want to stop iCloud from backing up your photos.
To do this, head back to the iCloud section of Settings. From there, you’ll tap Manage Storage, Photos, and then Disable and Delete. This will remove all photos from iCloud storage, so make sure you have them saved elsewhere before you complete this step!
Organize your iCloud Drive
For most people, purging iCloud photos and attachments will be enough to free up a significant amount of space. However, if you still need more storage, you may want to clean out your iCloud Drive. This is where you’ll find a range of application files, like PDFs and other documents.
Deleting iCloud files is easiest when done online: head over to the iCloud website to purge your files.
Make the Most of your iCloud Management Strategy
With the right tips in mind, iCloud management is a breeze meaning you’ll spend less time trying to squeeze “just one more” photo or video onto your phone. Purging unwanted apps, attachments, photos, videos, and other files is the best way to free up space, allowing you to make the most of your phone once more.