iPhone guide
How to free up storage on your iPhone
When your iPhone says its storage is almost full, the culprit is rarely iOS itself. It’s usually years of photos and videos, a few oversized apps and message attachments nobody remembers receiving. iOS already has most of the tools you need — they’re just spread across Settings and the Photos app. This guide walks through them in the order that frees the most space for the least effort.
See what is actually using the space
Open Settings › General › iPhone Storage. After a few seconds, a coloured bar shows how your storage is split between apps, photos, media, iOS and System Data, and the list below ranks your apps from largest to smallest. Tap any app to see how much is the app itself and how much is its documents and data.
Above the list, iOS may show recommendations for your phone — offloading apps you don’t use, for example — with the space each one would save. They are worth a look before you delete anything by hand.
Photos at the top of the list? That’s the norm, and it’s why most of this guide is about your library. A bigger app can usually be offloaded; a bigger library has to be sorted.
Offload the apps you rarely use
Offloading removes an app but keeps its documents and data. Its icon stays on your Home Screen, and tapping it reinstalls the app from the App Store with everything where you left it.
- For one app: Settings › General › iPhone Storage, tap the app, then Offload App.
- Automatically: Settings › Apps › App Store and turn on Offload Unused Apps. iOS then offloads apps you haven’t used in a while whenever storage runs low.
If an app’s “Documents & Data” is the heavy part — downloaded episodes, offline playlists or maps — offloading won’t help. Delete those downloads inside the app instead.
Go after videos first
A single long video can take as much room as hundreds of photos, so videos are where the gigabytes hide. In Photos, tap Collections (on iOS 18, simply scroll down below your library), go to Media Types and open your videos. Delete the clips you no longer need: accidental recordings, long rushes you already edited, screen recordings.
To keep future clips smaller, open Settings › Camera › Record Video and pick a lower resolution or frame rate for everyday filming: 4K at 60 fps produces much bigger files than 1080p at 30 fps. In Settings › Camera › Formats, keep High Efficiency selected — it stores photos and videos in HEIF/HEVC, which take less space than the “Most Compatible” JPEG/H.264 option.
The Photos app can’t sort your library by file size, so the heaviest videos are hard to spot. That’s exactly what Swipix’s Heaviest pile does — more on that below.
Clear out screenshots, bursts and duplicates
Screenshots are small one by one but pile up by the thousand. In Photos, open Media Types › Screenshots, tap Select, then drag your finger across the thumbnails to select a whole row or screen in one move before deleting. Do the same with bursts: open one, keep the best frame and let the rest go.
Then check Utilities › Duplicates. Since iOS 16, Photos detects identical copies of the same photo and lets you Merge them into one. Our guide to deleting duplicate photos explains what merging keeps and how to deal with near-identical shots the album ignores.
Empty Recently Deleted
Deleted photos aren’t gone yet: they move to the Recently Deleted album and stay there for 30 days — still taking up space. That’s why storage often barely moves right after a big clean-up.
In Photos, go to Utilities › Recently Deleted, tap View Album and unlock it with Face ID, Touch ID or your passcode. Tap Select, then Delete All. Only do this once you’re sure: after that, the items can’t be recovered.
Let iCloud keep the full-size originals
If you use iCloud Photos, go to Settings › your name › iCloud › Photos, check that Sync this iPhone is on, then choose Optimize iPhone Storage (on iOS 27, it sits under iPhone Storage on that screen). Your full-resolution photos and videos stay in iCloud, while your iPhone keeps lighter versions and downloads the originals when you open them.
Every Apple Account comes with 5 GB of free iCloud storage, so a larger library needs an iCloud+ plan. And remember that with iCloud Photos turned on, deleting a photo on your iPhone deletes it from iCloud and your other devices too.
Trim old messages and attachments
By default, Messages keeps your conversations forever, including every photo and video you’ve been sent. In Settings › Apps › Messages, tap Keep Messages and replace Forever with one year or 30 days: older messages and their attachments are then deleted automatically. This can’t be undone, so save anything important first.
To see how much space your conversations take, open Settings › General › iPhone Storage and tap Messages. For a lighter touch, delete the heaviest threads — group chats full of videos, typically — straight from the Messages app.
Sort the rest of your library with a swipe
Settings and Photos can delete in bulk, but they can’t decide for you which of your thousands of photos are worth keeping — and that’s usually where the space is. Swipix shows your library one photo at a time: swipe right to keep, left to delete.
Piles take you to the biggest wins first: Heaviest ranks photos and videos by file size, Duplicates groups identical and similar shots and suggests which one to keep, and Screenshots and Videos isolate the usual suspects. Nothing is deleted until you review your selection and confirm, and deleted items go to Recently Deleted like any deletion in Photos, so you keep 30 days to change your mind.
Everything happens on your iPhone — your photos are never uploaded. Swipix is free to download, with an optional Premium subscription that unlocks unlimited swipes and the advanced piles. It’s available in six languages, on iPhone and Android.
- Photos never leave your phone
- Recoverable for 30 days
- iPhone & Android
Frequently asked questions
Why is my iPhone storage still full after deleting photos?
Deleted photos and videos move to the Recently Deleted album and keep using space for 30 days. Empty it in Photos (Utilities › Recently Deleted › Select › Delete All) to get the space back straight away.
What is System Data, and can I delete it?
System Data covers caches, logs and other resources the system is currently using. There’s no button to delete it, and Apple says you don’t need to take any action: iOS manages it on its own. Focus on photos, videos, apps and messages, which you control.
Does offloading an app delete my data?
No. Offloading removes the app but keeps its documents and data. Tap its icon to reinstall it and pick up where you left off. Deleting the app, on the other hand, removes its data too.
Will “Optimize iPhone Storage” delete my photos?
No. Your full-resolution photos and videos stay in iCloud; your iPhone keeps lighter versions and downloads the originals when you need them. You do need enough iCloud storage for your whole library.