If you upgrade to a new model, you won't have to worry about running out of space again because of the huge capacities available.

If your phone is running low on space, don't worry, there's a way to clear it.

How to find out how much space you have left on an iPhone

Determine how much space you have left before doing anything else.

This is the first thing. The settings app needs to be opened.

There are two The general could be tapped.

There are three. You can tap the storage on the phone.

The General settings on iPhone, with the “iPhone Storage” option highlighted.
Tap "iPhone Storage."
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There are four. You should see a graph at the top of the screen that shows how much free space you have and how much you use up.

The “iPhone Storage” settings on iPhone, with a graph showing the remaining storage space and what’s eating it up.
The graph will reveal how much storage space is left.
Stefan Ionescu/Insider

There are five. You can find suggestions on how to make more storage on the recommendations section. If you want to see what Apple suggests, tap on a suggestion.

The “iPhone Storage” settings on iPhone, with the “Recommendations” section highlighted.
Tap on a recommendation to see suggestions for freeing up space.
Stefan Ionescu/Insider

How to free up space on iPhone

After seeing how much storage space you have left and what's taking up the most space on your phone, it's time to free some of it.

Delete non-essential apps

Non- essential apps are those that you don't use often. On the storage screen, you can single them out.

This is the first thing. The settings app needs to be opened.

There are two The general could be tapped.

There are three. You can tap the storage on the phone.

The General settings on iPhone, with the “iPhone Storage” option highlighted.
Tap "iPhone Storage."
Stefan Ionescu/Insider

There are four. To see how much storage space you have left, wait for the apps to load. In terms of size, the apps will be listed from the big to the small.

There are five. You can see which apps you haven't used in a while by looking at Last used.

The “iPhone Storage” settings on iPhone, with “Last Used” highlighted below one of the apps to show when the user last used it.
Look at "Last Used" below an app.
Stefan Ionescu/Insider

There are six. If you haven't used the app in a while and it's taking up too much space, it's time to switch to another app.

There are seven. If you choose to remove the app and all of its data, you'll have to leave the phone.

An app’s storage settings on iPhone, with the “Offload App” and “Delete App” buttons showing.
Choose to either "Offload App" or "Delete App."
Stefan Ionescu/Insider
  • Offload App removes the app from your phone but leaves all of its data behind. If you reinstall it later, the data will still be there and you can continue using it normally. This is a good option if you plan to use the app again later, and the app itself is very large but the data takes up very little space. A good example of this is Google Maps — the app is about 124MB, but its data is probably just a few megabytes.
  • Delete App deletes the app and all of its data. This is a good choice if the app's data is much larger than the app itself, so there's little advantage to deleting just the app — like Spotify, if you download a lot of music, or the Music app itself.

Remove or optimize excess iPhone photos

High Efficiency mode can be enabled for the pictures you take with your camera to be better.

Each photo will take less space to store than before. It could be turned on already, but it needs to be double checked.

This is the first thing. The settings app needs to be opened.

There are two You can tap the camera.

There are three. There are formats that you could tap.

The Camera settings on iPhone, with the “Formats” option highlighted.
Tap "Formats."
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There are three. The camera capture mode needs to be set to high efficiency. Don't tap on it if it's not there.

The “Formats” settings page on iPhone, with the “High Efficiency” option highlighted.
Make sure there's a blue checkmark next to "High Efficiency."
Stefan Ionescu/Insider

Delete music

If you have a lot of music on your phone, you can get rid of it.

This is the first thing. The settings app needs to be opened.

There are two The general could be tapped.

There are three. You can tap the storage on the phone.

The General settings on iPhone, with the “iPhone Storage” option highlighted.
Tap "iPhone Storage."
Stefan Ionescu/Insider

There are four. There is a good chance that the Music app will be at the top of the list if you have a large digital music library.

The “iPhone Storage” settings on iPhone, with the list of apps showing beneath the graph and the “Recommendations” section.
Tap the music app.
Stefan Ionescu/Insider

There are five. If you want to remove an artist from your phone, you need to wipe it. You can use the artists to remove tracks. You can see how much space each song takes. Multiple artists can be removed at the same time.

If you keep downloaded tracks in other music apps, you'll need to open that app and remove them from there.

Clear Safari's cache

All those temporary internet files add up and could be taking up a lot of space.

All of your cookies will be deleted if you clear your cache. This can save you a lot of space.

This is the first thing. The settings app needs to be opened.

There are two Go to the browser, tap it.

The Settings app on iPhone, with the “Safari” option highlighted.
Tap "Safari."
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There are three. There is clear history and website data to be tapped.

Safari settings on iPhone, with the “Clear History and Website Data” option highlighted.
Tap "Clear History and Website Data."
Stefan Ionescu/Insider

There are four. There is a pop-up with clear history and data.

The pop-up that appears when clearing Safari’s cache on iPhone.
Clear Safari's history and data.
Stefan Ionescu/Insider

Delete old messages

Unless you have a lot of texts with images attached, messages won't take up a lot of space.

If every megabyte counts, you can manuallydelete messages. You can change the settings on your phone to remove older texts.

This is the first thing. The settings app needs to be opened.

There are two You can send messages by tapping them.

The Settings app on iPhone, with the “Messages” option highlighted.
Tap "Messages."
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There are three. Don't forget to tap keep messages.

The “Messages” settings on iPhone, with the “Keep Messages” option highlighted.
Tap "Keep Messages."
Stefan Ionescu/Insider/Insider

There are four. You can keep the messages for 30 days or a year by tapping on the next screen.

The “Keep Messages” screen on iPhone.
Choose to keep messages for 30 days, a year, or forever.
Stefan Ionescu/Insider

There are five. If you choose to do so, you'll see a pop-up asking if you want to remove messages that are more than a year old. To get rid of them, tap the option to cancel.