A reader asked about this problem as he has an iPhone 6 and is short on space. Thanks Doug, for submitting the question.
Users with older iPhones probably chose a smaller amount of storage at the time of purchase never thinking that they could gobble up all those GB’s. The “I’ll never need that much space” thought comes to mind. (Reader note: I have an iPhone 12 Pro. The following instructions relate to an iPhone 6 as an example. Since IOS updates change what is on some screens, I was not able to test all these tips, but I think, with a little searching, you should be able to follow the instructions even it does not apply to newer iPhones.
As always, you should back up your device prior to major changes. This is a general example of doing that: Back up to iCloud: Go to Settings > iCloud > iCloud Backup and move the toggle to the on position. Backup to computer: Connect iPhone, open iTunes, tap phone icon; in Backups, click Automatically Back Up > This computer. This article shows you how to back up your iPhone 6, 6 Plus, 6S, or 6S Plus to iCloud and to a computer.
Here are a few tips to recover storage and get rid of junk.
Let’s start with the most obvious. The easiest way to quickly free up some space on your bulging iPhone is to delete the apps and games you use the least. You can do this by holding down the app icons till they start wiggling on the screen and tap the ‘X’. There is a better and more efficient way to do this.
Instead, head into ‘Settings’, ‘General’ and ‘Usage and finally ‘Manage Storage’ and you’ll be met with the list of all your apps, along with how much space they’re eating up. Look at the size of the app that you are considering removing. Tap the > and scroll to the bottom of the screen to delete it.
Head into a music app, such as Spotify, and delete playlists you’ve downloaded, or heading into ‘Settings’ then ‘Music Quality’ and alter your ‘Sync Quality’ to Normal.
Going through your apps and clearing the cache or ridding them of old data is a great way to free up space on your iPhone, without sacrificing apps or games.
News feeds might be another location to search to get rid of magazines or newspapers that are stacking up.
Photo apps, especially those that haven’t that don’t support the iOS 8 feature that means you don’t have to copy photos from one library to another, are another of the big space hoarders.
For photos stop the camera from saving both the original and HDR versions of a photo. Aside from clogging up your library with duplicates, this essentially halves the number of snaps you’ll be able to take, as you’re saving two photos for every one you shoot. Head into ‘Settings’, ‘Photos & Camera’ and uncheck ‘Keep Normal Photo’ in the HDR section.
Another space saving tip is to limit the amount of Burst mode shots you take and keep. Sometimes, you can take 20 photos without even thinking about it and as the iOS Photos groups these together under one snap, it’s easy to forget about them.
There’s nothing worse than scrolling through your Camera Roll and seeing it populated by loads of screenshots you’ve taken of your phone’s homescreen, lock screen and so on. Deleting these by hand is far from a quick process. Also take time to scroll thorugh your photo library and get rid of duplicates, out of focus/blurry shots, or just uninteresting shots.
While backing up to iCloud is the way Apple wants you do things, you can also free up some on your phone using other services. Dropbox (free) lets you automatically upload photos and videos.
Google Drive also works great on iOS and is a perfect place to store pictures, documents and pretty much anything else. Microsoft’s OneDrive is another option, again with some nice photo importing features and great integration especially if you’re rocking a Windows 8.1 laptop or tablet.
Messages may not seem like the sort of thing that’ll eat up your space, but when they’re packed with pictures, videos and attachments, the size soon begins to add up. Aside from individually deleting specific entries, you can set everything to auto-delete either after 30 days or a year. To set this, head into ‘Settings’, ‘Messages’ and alter the ‘Keep Messages’ option.
Instead of Storing music and videos directly on your device consumes valuable space. Consider just streaming you.
Music services like Spotify, Google Play All Access, YouTube, etc. all offer streaming, so no need to store the tunes directly on your iPhone and even Apple’s iTunes Match service lets you easily download a few songs at a time from your wider library even when you’re away from a computer.
Delete history, cache, and cookies by clearing your history and cookies, go to Settings > Safari, and tap Clear History and Website Data. Clearing your history, cookies, and browsing data from Safari won’t change your AutoFill information.
To clear your cookies and keep your history, go to Settings > Safari > Advanced > Website Data, then tap Remove All Website Data.
After trying these and still not happy, go to YouTube and search this topic of recovering space on older iPhones.