But for those who want to manually choose and remove items, here’s a quick rundown on what you should ditch. This might vary from phone to phone, but the best way to determine what’s taking up the most space is to check your settings: Settings > General > Usage > Manage Storage. There, you’ll see a list of apps in order of biggest to the smallest.
1. Photos & Video
IMAGE: BARBARA WALTON/EPA/CORBIS
Let’s be real. All of your cat photos and selfies look relatively the same, and your selfies withyour cat also look the same. If it’s too hard to part, upload them to your computer and you can delete the rest from your camera roll.
There’s also an option in your settings to automatically upload and store your photo library in iCloud so that you can access your cat photos from all your devices.
And don’t forget to super-delete the photos and videos in your “Recently Deleted” folder.
2. Messages
Text threads have become sentimental tokens of BFF history, but the further back they go, the more room they take up. You can change how long your message history stays in “Settings” and “Messages.”
“Forever” might not be the best option.
3. Music
Each MP3 file takes up about 3MB, but you probably guessed all your Beyonce albums were taking up space.
What you might not have thought of is all the offline music you have in Spotify. Switch off the “available offline” mode on your albums and playlists, and you’ll free up space in no time. When not in offline mode, music-streaming apps take up way less space than the Music app.
4. Podcasts
A podcast episode that’s about an hour long can take up around 77 MB. If you’re subscribed to a ton, and have automatic downloads, the numbers can add up. You can edit settings so that new episodes don’t automatically download.
In Settings, select Podcasts, and under Podcast Defaults, select Download Episodes. You can choose to download only new ones, unplayed episodes or just turn it off.
If you want to change this setting for only certain podcasts you’re subscribed to, you can do that through the Podcasts app. Just click on a podcast, and scroll up to Settings.
Another helpful tip: delete downloads once you’ve listened to an episode to clear up space.
5. Apps
In the Manage Storage page of your Settings, you can see which apps take up the most space and delete them from there. If you don’t use an app often, you can delete and re-download when it’s necessary. You’ll notice apps don’t take up that much space. In some apps, you can delete extra information that isn’t necessary. For example, in Safari, you can clear your history and website data.
6. Other tips and tricks
Delete contacts who don’t need contacting anymore. We both know your ex doesn’t need to hear from you for a while, or maybe ever. Throw out old notes and completed calendar events. It makes downloading a new iOS like the techie’s version of spring cleaning — new OS, new you.
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