It’s one of the most common issues right now for iPhone users. The super annoying iPhone almost full storage notification that popups up 10 times a minute on your iPhone! You know, the one that says ‘Storage Almost Full: you can manage your storage in Settings’.
My iPhone storage is almost full
One of the reasons behind your iPhone memory shrinkage (not an official term), aside from your music, photos and videos, is your cache. Cache is simply storage of old data for memory. Your apps accumulate a lot of cache, especially if they do not self-clean.
It’s suggested by Apple, that iOS app developers build apps that have a self-cleaning function which clears your app cache every so often. Unfortunately, not all developers do this! That sucks, especially because unlike some Android phones, iPhones do not have a ‘clear all cache’ button.
Common issue
I’m going to go ahead and assume there are a lot of people experiencing this iPhone storage issue. I think this is safe to say after reading thousands of complaints on Twitter, and having general face-to-face conversations with family, friends and colleagues!
Find out how to get rid of the iPhone ‘Storage Almost Full’ message right now. Simply follow the tips below to fix your iPhone storage problem.
So full I can’t even open WhatsApp!
Is your iPhone so full that you can no longer retrieve your WhatsApp messages? If you’re at this level of iPhone storage capacity, you only have a few moments left till your phone explodes…only joking! But that’s what it sometimes feels like when the ‘storage almost full’ popup interrupts your every move. Work your way through the tips below, each suggestion will free up space on your iPhone 6/6S/6 Plus/SE/5S/5C/4S or 4. The first few you may have already tried but bear with me. I need to list all options I’ve found.
Get rid of iPhone storage full popup
Although there actually is no real ‘Go away’ option on this popup, there is a way to make it disappear. Find out how to fix the iPhone storage problem below:
1. Delete unused apps
Go through every single app that you have downloaded. See if there are any apps that you no longer need or no longer use. If you find any lurking on your home screen, delete them now.
Go to Settings > General > Usage > Manage Storage > tap and delete any unwanted apps
2. Delete unwanted photos and videos
Boo! It’s never the favourite option when trying to clear space on your iPhone. But it will help massively, even if you just delete a few iPhone photos or videos.
- You may have a screenshot you no longer need
- You may have two selfies that look exactly the same (come on, we all do it!)
- You may have accidentally taken a cluster of identical pics with the shutter mode on your camera
3. Clear Safari cache
Similar to most web browser apps, Safari stores data (cache) to cut down time spent accessing frequently visited sites. Over time, this cache builds up quite a bit. See if you can free up some iPhone space by deleting your Safari internet cache. This is a great tip. Some users have cleared over 2GB of space from their iPhones after trying tips 3 and 4.
Go to Settings > Safari > Clear History and Website Data
To restart your iPhone:
Press home button and lock button together and hold for 10 seconds (or until iPhone switches off) > then turn iPhone back on
4. Delete and re-install Facebook app.
No this won’t delete any of your data, just your cache. The Facebook app is one of the apps mentioned earlier that does not automatically clear its cache. Tut tut! If you delete Facebook and restart your device, you should see an immediate difference in your iPhone storage.
Hold down Facebook app for 1.5 seconds > (your apps will start to jiggle about) > tap X on the Facebook app > tap delete
Now Restart iPhone
Press home button and lock button together and hold for 10 seconds (or until iPhone switches off) > then turn iPhone back on
5. Reset all settings
Resetting your settings will not erase any of your data, just your settings and preferences. So your music, photos, contacts and calendar events will be safe.
To Reset All Settings – Go to Settings > General > Reset > Reset All Settings
6. Backup and restore
There are two ways to backup and restore an iPhone. One is through iTunes. The other is through iCloud. Backing up your device simply means making a copy of your iPhone’s data and settings in a file. Restoring your iPhone means replacing all your current data and settings, with all the data and setting within a previous iPhone backup file.
7. Backup without iTunes or iCloud
Some people have problems backing up to iTunes or iCloud. They may get an ‘iCloud Storage Full’ notification on their iPhones. Or iTunes may hit them with an ‘iTunes could not backup the iPhone’ error message.
Download Enigma Recovery and the application will copy existing data on your iPhone’s database to your computer. You can then happily delete things that have been backed up from your phone, knowing they are saved to your PC or laptop. Click the download button above from your Windows or Mac computer and follow these steps:
- Download & install Enigma Recovery
- Open to start screen
- Connect iPhone to computer
- Select all and start scan
- View and Export data to computer
- Delete data saved to your computer from your iPhone
Something extra!
Here’s a bonus! Enigma Recovery can also recover deleted iPhone data during the process above. Enigma Recovery is a smartphone recovery and retrieval system, compatible with both Android, iPhone and other iOS devices. It can successfully copy the contents of your iPhone database (including deleted items) to your Mac or PC.
The software can create a backup of your device on your computer. During which it can capture deleted text messages, iMessages, contacts, call logs, WhatsApp history (including attachments), calendar entries and notes!
8. Turn off iCloud drive
iCloud drive is a cool feature that allows you to access files from your mac or any other iOS device connected to iCloud. To create more space on your iPhone, turn off iCloud Drive:
Go to Settings > iCloud > iCloud Drive > Off
9. Newsstand apps
Some magazine apps from your newsstand may not automatically delete old issues or copies. Generally, most magazine apps keep the latest 3 issues in the app. Old issues are deleted as new ones appear. However, there are some that will just store the entire history of old issues within the app. This could cause your iPhone memory to reach its capacity sooner.
Open your magazine app now to check if this is happening to you.
10. Tweet @AppleSupport
If none of the above methods worked for you, try this Twitter tip! If you have a Twitter account, tweet @AppleSupport letting them know of your iPhone storage issue. Then keep an eye on your direct messages. They should get in contact and find a solution for you. The response rate it pretty good, not 100%, but it’s worth a try!
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To anyone who this may help, here’s what finally freed up space on my iPhone. I turned off iCloud drive and photos, because google photos gave me more storage space. You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. Also google photos has a feature that allows u to back up the photos then delete the original copies from your phone. You can look it up, its pretty simple. What I found to be most helpful with clearing up space was removing the back ups. For some reason the back up of all your apps and information stays on the drive of the phone and takes up most of the space. I guess u can back it up and save it iCloud drive then delete it from the phone itself. But I don’t use iCloud drive. Either way it made my storage move from almost full to like mostly empty.
I have done all of this pretaining to phone and has not helped now apps arw automatically disappearing that I need and want I’m 68 and need to text and receive texts often from doctors and I can not even text
Hello Jan,
Thanks for your message. I’m sorry to hear about the problems you’re having with your iPhone. If you have tried the above and are still seeing the ‘Storage Almost Full’ popup, a good option would be to check what is using up your device storage. You can do this by visiting Settings > General > [Device] Storage. This will show you the apps that are using space on your phone as well as the amount of storage being used, allowing you to uninstall any unnecessary apps that are using up large amounts of storage. Another bonus of this option is that this section will sometimes show you recommendations on how you can optimise the storage on your device.
Hope this helps!
Thanks,
Shaazia
I have deleted as much photos and videos as possible yet it says iPhone storage full How do I get back on to delete some more
Hello Heather,
Thanks for your message! As a next step, it may be helpful if you work out which apps or data types are using the most space on your iPhone. To find this out, tap ‘Settings’ > ‘General’ > ‘iPhone Storage’. This useful screen will give you a list of recommendations from Apple on how you can increase the storage on your phone, and will also show the amount of storage used by each app on your device.
Hope this helps, please let us know if you need any further assistance!
Thanks,
Shaazia
Well, yes i have the same problem with my iphone 6s. Most of the times it just pops up and i cant do anything about it. I deleted all of the unused apps and photos and in the settings it says i have 15GB left on my phone.
So thats a lot of storage what i cant use for some reason and I cant update the software as well always getting an error message. PLS someone help 🙁
Hello Szebasztian,
Thanks for your message. If you have a computer available, you can try and update your software through iTunes. I’m not sure which error message specifically you are seeing on your device, however, there is some additional advice on Apple’s website about errors when trying to update an iOS device, which you may find useful.
Hope this helps!
Thanks,
Shaazia
YOU ARE AMAZING!
I followed every single one of your steps and poof…just like that it worked.
No more annoying ‘iCloud storage’ nonsense!
Your instruction was so articulate it made it SO easy to follow. Your step by step was fool proof and ALL of the varied recommendations were spot on!
Thank You Thank You Thank YOU!
Toni
Hi Toni,
Thanks for your great feedback, we’re glad we were able to help you!
Thanks,
Shaazia
Thanks so much. I have been trying to free up space so that I could do an update on my iphone 5SE. The FB suggestion did it. Thanks so much.
Hi Lisa,
I’m glad to hear we were able to help you!
Thanks,
Shaazia
I have the apple podcast app and did not realize that I had 40 podcasts in there. Once I removed those from my library I had 7 GB more storage. Boom!!
Hi Patti,
Thanks for your message and for sharing how you managed to increase the storage on your device – hopefully your tip might be able to help some of our other readers too!
Thanks again!
Shaazia
Hi Shaazia,
Great article and very effective methods… worked for me wonderfully on my iPhone 6S !!
Just a question, can I use google drive for backup and restoration instead of iCloud as it comparatively as much more free space than iCloud (5 GB).
Thanks 🙂
Hi Rohit,
Thanks for your message, I’m glad that the methods listed above have helped you!
You are able to use Google Drive to store copies of some file types like photos etc. However, on an iPhone, Google Drive will not perform an identical function compared to iCloud, which stores a range of data and information about your device that Google Drive would not be able to.
Hope this helps!
Thanks,
Shaazia