Guide
iPhone storage full: what actually helps
Last updated: . Menu names can differ slightly between iOS versions.
In short: Under Settings → General → iPhone Storage you see what takes up the space. After that, five built-in tools help: emptying Recently Deleted, iCloud Photos with Optimize iPhone Storage, deleting old messages automatically, offloading apps and deleting large videos.
When iOS reports “Storage almost full”: before you start deleting apps, look where the space actually goes. This guide only uses what iOS already has.
1. See where the space goes
Open Settings → General → iPhone Storage. The bar at the top shows how the space is split between apps, photos, messages and the system. Below it, apps are listed by size, plus recommendations when iOS has any. The first calculation takes a few seconds.
2. Empty Recently Deleted
Deleted photos and videos stay in the Recently Deleted album for 30 days and keep taking up space until then. In the Photos app you find the album under Utilities. iOS asks for Face ID, Touch ID or your passcode to open it. There you can delete everything for good. What you delete there cannot be recovered.
3. Keep photos in iCloud
With iCloud Photos and Optimize iPhone Storage, the originals stay in iCloud and the iPhone keeps smaller versions. You find it under Settings → your name → iCloud → Photos. It needs enough iCloud storage: Apple gives you 5 GB for free, and if your library is larger you need more.
Keep in mind: with iCloud Photos, whatever you delete on the iPhone is also deleted in iCloud and on your other devices.
4. Old messages and attachments
Under Settings → Messages → Keep Messages (from iOS 18: Settings → Apps → Messages) you can choose 30 days or 1 year. iOS then deletes older messages with their attachments by itself. In the storage view under Messages, iOS also lists large attachments, photos and videos from chats that you can delete one by one.
5. Offload apps instead of deleting them
In the storage view, pick an app and tap Offload App. The app is removed, its documents and data stay. When you reinstall it, everything is back. With Offload Unused Apps, iOS does this by itself when space runs low.
6. Find large videos
Under Settings → Camera → Record Video (from iOS 18: Settings → Apps → Camera → Record Video), iOS shows how much one minute of video takes in the selected format. In the Photos app, Media Types → Videos shows all videos, but Photos does not sort them by size.
What does not help
Apps that promise to clear “junk” or the “cache” of other apps cannot do that on iOS: every app can only reach its own data. What frees space are the steps above.