When you are not used to erasing the irrelevant, unnecessary or redundant data from your phone, it can become a burden as the free space on your phone will keep get smaller over time. And as your phone starts running low on storage, you may experience many functions misbehaving or force stop.
At some point, you will have no other option but to start deleting the old or unnecessary data from your phone. There are plenty of ways to remove data from your phone. Here, we will see how to do that for the iPhones and iPads.
How to Delete Documents or Data on iPhone and iPad?
1. Launch Settings
Unlock your iPhone. Locate Settings in applications. It is an inbuilt service on your device and it has the gear logo as its icon.
2. Click General
You will see many options related to the settings of your phone. Find and tap on “General”. It also has the gear icon.
3. Go to iPhone Storage
Locate the “iPhone Storage” option from the list. Tap on it.
4. Choose the application
Now select the app you want to proceed with. Tap on its option. You will see options like “Offload App” and “Delete App”. The “Offload App” option is a blue color button and the “Delete App’ option is a red color button.
5. Offload App
Clicking on the “Offload App” option will uninstall the application from your device, but its data will be stored. So when you install this application again, you will still have your old data.
6. Delete App
In case you want to delete the application along with its data, then tap on the “Delete App” option. It will uninstall the application from your device and permanently delete the data associated with the particular app. If you install the app again, you will no longer be having your old data.
How to Clean Up Storage by Deleting Photos and Videos?
The photos and videos on your device also consume a lot of space. You can clean up some storage by deleting many of these unwanted or unnecessary pictures and videos.
1. Launch Photos
Locate the “Photos” app on your device. It is an inbuilt app.
2. Click on Photos
You will see all the pictures and videos on your device. Tap on the “Select” option, located at the top right of your screen. It will allow you to select as many pictures as you want. Locate and tap on the pictures you want to delete until you are done.
3. Delete
Once you are done with the selection, tap on the trash bin icon located at the bottom right of your screen. It is a “Delete” option. Upon tapping on it, you will be asked to confirm the task. Tap on the “Delete XY Photos” option, where XY states the number of pictures you have selected. It will delete all the selected pictures from your device.
How to Delete Documents and Data of Specific Apps from iCloud on iPhone and iPad?
Before we move to the steps to show you how to delete data from your iCloud account, we would like to advise you to allow only essential apps to store their data in your iCloud. It will become easier to manage your storage as you will only have to deal with the important data. So apart from saving some storage on your iCloud, you will also be saving your time and energy when you will have to manage this data.
1. Launch Settings
Locate Settings in app on the phone.
2. Go to Your Profile
Now go to your profile. Your iDevice profile is mostly kept by your name. Your profile’s section can be located at the top of the Settings menu. Tap on it.
3. Go to iCloud
Your profile section will display a list of your personal information on your iOS device. Locate the “iCloud” option from the list. Tap on it.
4. Manage Storage
iCloud will show you the storage details of your iCloud account. Locate and tap on the “Manage Storage” option.
5. Select Application
A list of apps connected to your iCloud account will appear. Locate the app you want to remove from your iCloud. Tap on it.
6. Delete Data
You will see a red button with the option of “Delete Data”. Tap on it. It will ask for your confirmation to delete the data from your iCloud. Tap on the “Delete” option to confirm the deletion of this data.
How to Clean Up Space from iMessage on iPhone / iPad?
iMessage is widely used among iPhone users. It is possible that the regular use of iMessage could have taken a lot of space on your iPhone. You can delete unnecessary conversations, videos, documents or stickers to clean up some space. Here is how to do it.
1. Launch Settings
Locate Settings in app and open it.
2. Click General
You will see many options related to the settings of your phone. Find and tap on “General”.
3. iPhone / iPad Storage
Locate “iPhone Storage” / “iPad Storage” from the list. Tap on it.
4. Messages
It will display the list of applications along with the size of the data they are consuming. Locate “Messages” from the list and tap on it.
5. Select section
You will see a section of “Documents & Data” here. It displays the different types of data like conversations, videos, stickers, etc. that are available on your device. Tap on the relevant option to erase the data.
6. Edit
Now, you will see a list of the chosen types of data stored on your device. Click on the “Edit” option located at the top right of your screen. It will allow you to select as many options as you want, by clicking on the radio button, located at the exact left of all the options. Tap on all the files you want to delete.
7. Delete
Once done selecting the data you want to delete, tap on the trash bit icon, located at the top right of your screen. It is the “Delete” option. It will delete the files you have selected.
How to Clean out Storage from Old Emails and Attachments?
In this method, we will only be clearing old cache from your email account. To do so, we will delete your email account from your device so the old cache and its unnecessary attachments will be removed.
1. Launch Settings
Locate Settings in app and tap on it.
2. Go to Accounts & Passwords
Locate the “Accounts & Passwords” section from the list. Tap on it.
3. Go to Emails
You will see the accounts you have connected to your device. Locate the option of Emails from the list. Tap on it.
4. Delete Account
You will see the option of “Delete Account” in here. It is a red color button. Tap on it.
5. Confirm Deletion
A warning message will be displayed to proceed. Click on the option of “Delete from My iPhone”.
P.S: It will delete the email account from your device. You can re-add your email by providing your credentials. You will not lose any data; only the old cache from your mails will be cleared.
Apart from these steps, there are some other things you can do to free up some space.
- The media cache on your iDevice consumes a lot of space. This cache can come from your music, movies or even the TV shows you watch on your device. Their thumbnail can consume a lot of space. You can free up that space by removing all music from your iPhone or iPad and then re synching it through your computer. By doing this, your phone will erase a lot of caches to free up some space.
- Keep clearing your Browser history and cache data from time to time. It will clear a lot of unwanted data to free up some space.
- Always try to clear out the cache and redundant data of apps regularly. That will help your iPhone from running out of space. Apps like Safari, WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Twitter are a few of the most-used apps. You can keep clearing cache from these apps to keep them eating the space on your phone.
- You can also free up space by deleting voice mails from your phone.
- Deleting or Uninstalling the apps you don’t need anymore. It happens quite often that we Install some apps to use for some time. After one point, we don’t use those apps at all. Either we find a better alternative or we just don’t need them any further. Deleting such apps can free up a lot of space on your phone.
Conclusion
In this article, we discussed a bunch of use-cases when the iPhone/iPad can consume a lot of memory space. We’ve mentioned the step-by-step process in each section to help you restore the space in iOS device.