iPhone Storage is Full

I have an iPhone 6s Plus 16gb model and it is on 10.2.1. Periodically, I will get a message saying the "storage is full" on the phone. I have a lot of Apps on the phone and I have a lot of photos on it too.

What is the best way to free up the space? I don't want to delete any Apps but I am thinking the Photos are the cause of the problem. I know I can transfer the Photos to the computer but I know there is Photo cache sitting on the phone. There has to be a better way to manage storage on the phone.

guyguy17 said:

There has to be a better way to manage storage on the phone.

Click to expand...

Yes there is.

- Install fewer apps on the phone.
- Store fewer files on the phone (photo's, video's, music, etc.).
- Get a phone with more storage.

But seriously...it's not about how much storage is built into the phone...it's the day to day habits of the user.

Take the average person who has storage space issue's...and give them a:

- 32gig iPhone...and they will fill it up.
- 64gig iPhone...and they will fill it up
- 128gig iPhone...and they will fill it up.

Apps cannot be endlessly installed...photos cannot be endlessly taken & stored...music cannot be endlessly be downloaded & stored. Eventually there is a price to pay for these habits...and that's called "Storage is Full".

This is especially necessary with what these days would be considered a small amount of storage...a 16gig iPhone.

What is the "better way to manage storage on the iPhone"? Periodic examination of what is stored on the iPhone (weekly, monthly, etc.). If this is done...then there will be no surprise "Storage is Full" messages.

- Nick

Hello - Nick has already given you his concise and sage advice - of course, your first BIG problem is the storage on your iPhone - 16 GB only, pretty much a 'legacy' amount these days - Apple's minimal storage options for their iDevices on their website is 32 GB, then jumps to 128 GB - wife and I own 2 iPads (both 64 GB) and one iPhone 6 (128 GB) - so, your first consideration is whether to upgrade to a device w/ much more storage.

If not possible, then go into System Preferences -> General -> Storage & iCloud Usage - there pick 'Manage Storage' from the top dialog box which should generate the screen shown below (from my 64 GB iPad Air 2) - tell us how much 'Available' space is left on your device and what Apps (and their data - tap an app and the size & documents/data are broken down) are at the top of that list - those you need to work on. Dave
.

@guyguy

These days 16GB is a small storage capacity for an iPhone 6S+ when you consider that iOS 10 takes up about 1.5-1.7GB.

As regards your apps - often it's not the app that consumes the storage as much as the caches and "scruff" associated with them.

Here's one way you could reduce this. It involves deleting an app from the iPhone, then reinstalling it again, either from the App Store or via iTunes on your Mac. I'm talking about third party apps in the main (although iOS 10 will allow you to delete native apps too and then reinstall them.) Try this with as many apps as you can where loss of associated data is not important.

You can check how much space each app and its associated data are taking by going into Settings > General > Storage & iCloud Usage > Storage > Manage Storage.

All your apps will appear in a long list with the amount of storage associated with them. Note the figure for a particular app. Now tap on that app and it will display the size of the app and the documents and data associated with it. Some apps come in at, say, 10MB and the documents & data at 500MB!

As regards photos & videos, how many do you really need to keep on the iPhone when they could so easily be stored on your Mac? The Photos "cache" is not the problem if you transfer photos to the Mac & delete the pics on the iPhone (including "recently deleted" with keeps them for 30 days).

Just a few thoughts.

Ian

You beat me to it Dave - again!

Ian

IWT said:

You beat me to it Dave - again!

Ian

Click to expand...

Hi Ian - well, I've been 'second on the draw' many times - at least we gave the same advice! Dave

.

Hi Ian - well, I've been 'second on the draw' many times - at least we gave the same advice! Dave

Click to expand...

Two doctors giving the same advice? What is this world coming to? LOL. (Just joshing the both of you.)

Two doctors giving the same advice?

Click to expand...

The extra-interesting part is two doctors giving the same advice on a non-medical topic! lol

There has got to be a standup comedian joke in there somewhere!

- Nick

Photos take up a lot of memory. Use PhotoStream a s you go to share with a Mac or iPad then you can safely delete from Camera Roll.

badshoehabit said:

Photos take up a lot of memory. Use PhotoStream a s you go to share with a Mac or iPad then you can safely delete from Camera Roll.

Click to expand...

Are you sure about that. When you delete from Camera Roll it deletes from Photostream too does it not?

Sawday said:

Are you sure about that. When you delete from Camera Roll it deletes from Photostream too does it not?

Click to expand...

Yes; but not from your Mac, only from all your iDevices.

Ian

Thanks, Ian.

So, a Mac isn't a device? It's been a while (6-9 months) since I tested this for a friend who had the same problem ( I don't use Photostream) ensuring that a copy was made from Photos to a USB from the mac before deleting from the phone. The photos disappeared from the Mac...

Thanks for the replies. With all things to consider, I am aware and I understand 16gig is NOT a lot of space for a phone. Money does play a big part in buying a phone. Some of us don't have the money to buy 32 or higher. Kids = less money. Anyways, I did look at the phone storage and the top three. 1. Powerpoint 389mb, 2. Photos and Camera 365mb 3. Excel, followed by Word. So, Office claims most of space and Photos does as well. Typically, I don't use Office on the phone so that can go. In terms of the Photos, I have not transferred my photos to my Mac in a long time. So, that is partly the issue as well.

Never had an issue. Shots taken on my phone camera replicate on my MBP and iPad via Photo Stream when it's enabled on all devices. The images are held in P/S but are automatically filed in the top level library, Photos. You can transfer images via cable if preferred; they will go into Last Import, P/S (if enabled) and Photos. Once synced/imported you can remove pix from Camera Roll or P/S on any device but they will always remain in Photos on the Mac until manually deleted.

Verizon carries a nifty little gadget that contains a SIM card and attaches to your phone via lightning port. You can move all your photos over to that, and carry this extra gadget with you (it's about 2 inches square). I haven't tried it, but have good things about it.

I have a 16 gig iPhone too, and actually had to delete apps that were taking up too much space. I'm a digital hoarder....

You can delete some blurry and less important photos from your iPhone and maybe there are some residual files in your phone so clean your phone with the help of some apps is also a best option for you.

IWT said:

@guyguy

These days 16GB is a small storage capacity for an iPhone 6S+ when you consider that iOS 10 takes up about 1.5-1.7GB.

As regards your apps - often it's not the app that consumes the storage as much as the caches and "scruff" associated with them.

Here's one way you could reduce this. It involves deleting an app from the iPhone, then reinstalling it again, either from the App Store or via iTunes on your Mac. I'm talking about third party apps in the main (although iOS 10 will allow you to delete native apps too and then reinstall them.) Try this with as many apps as you can where loss of associated data is not important.

Click to expand...

I've found that the above is especially effective with regard to applications that regularly download a lot of data but which don't then expunge that data, even though you will never need it again. The prime offenders are news apps, digital magazines, social media apps (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram), and apps that allow you to watch short videos. After a few weeks such apps can grow huge. Delete them and download a fresh copy and you will likely be surprised by how much storage space is freed up.

Not mentioned in this thread is another way to recover a huge amount of storage space. A well-known "secret" that causes your storage to be optimized and compressed. That is to try and rent a movie from the iTunes Store that is way too large for the available space on your phone. The movie won't be downloaded, and you won't be charged for the movie, but your phone's storage will automatically be optimized. See:

http://www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/iphone/how-free-space-on-iphone-2017-3524712/

"head to Settings > General > About and make a note of how much storage you have. Then, head to the iTunes Store app and find a large title - we recommend The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers at a whopping 6.83GB. Once you've found a suitable movie, tap the Rent button twice (don't worry, you won't actually end up renting it) and dismiss the popup informing you that there's not enough space to download the movie.

"Now, head back to the About section of the Settings menu and take a look at your available storage. If all has gone well, you should see a difference of a few hundred megabytes, possibly more. While it won't work for everybody, users on reddit report that following the steps several times allowed them to keep freeing up more storage. We're not quite sure what Apple is deleting when it does this, as it's not apps, photos or other important data - instead, we assume that it'll be clearing out caches and other areas that make up the "Other" section on your iOS storage breakdown. "

You do have to wonder though why Apple sell their entry level iPhones with only 16Gb given the storage already used by native apps and the iOS amounts to nearly half that. I used to argue that 128Gb was too little for the base level MacBook Air but at least you could expand that with external storage devices.

Maybe it falls to sales staff to inform people about this but I feel that 32Gb for a smart phone is a minimum for todays requirements. Of course the price is a big deciding factor and sales people want to make a sale.

Try to use iTunes Sync to remove all photos, apps, movies and music that you do not need all the time. Media is usually the culprit and some apps like facebook also use up quite a lot of space over time. Uninstalling and reinstalling the app is the easiest way to cope with that I have found.

Starting with the iPhone 7 and 7+ Apple no longer sells an iPhone with 16 GB. The minimum is 32 GB and then jumps to 128 GB. My wife's 6s+ is 64 GB which I consider just the right storage size but it seems Apple has done away with that size for its newer iPhones and iPads.