How to clean up my iPhone storage

26 September 2026 · 3 minute read

Open Settings, General, iPhone Storage and see which apps use the most space. On most phones Photos is at or near the top. Delete the photos and videos you no longer want, then empty Recently Deleted in the Photos app, because iOS keeps deleted photos there for 30 days. After that, offload apps you do not use and clear large message attachments.

Find out what is filling your iPhone

Open Settings, then General, then iPhone Storage. The bar at the top splits your storage by type, and the list below sorts apps by size. Give it a few seconds to finish counting.

Write down the free space figure before you start. It is the number to check at the end.

Clear old photos and videos first

Photos and videos are usually the largest item on the list, and the oldest ones are the easiest to part with. Start at the beginning of your camera roll. Blurry shots go first, and so do the extra copies of the same group photo.

Videos cost far more space than photos. A few long clips can weigh as much as thousands of pictures, so check them early.

You can do this inside the Photos app with Select. A swipe app is quicker when there are thousands. PhotoGenie is a free one: it shows one photo at a time from the oldest, you swipe up to mark a photo, and you drop the ones worth keeping into albums as you go.

Empty Recently Deleted

Deleting a photo does not free the space. iOS moves it to Recently Deleted and keeps it for 30 days, so you can recover mistakes. Your storage figure does not move until that album is emptied.

To empty it:

1. Open Photos and tap Collections.
2. Tap Recently Deleted, below Utilities, then tap View Album and unlock with Face ID or your passcode.
3. Tap Select and choose the photos, tap the More button, then tap Delete.

Once it is empty, those photos cannot be recovered on the phone.

Offload apps and clear message attachments

Delete apps you no longer use. For apps you might want back, turn on Offload Unused Apps in Settings, Apps, App Store. When storage runs low, iOS removes apps you have not used but keeps their data. The icon stays on the Home Screen with a cloud symbol, and one tap reinstalls it.

Messages can hold gigabytes of photos and videos from old conversations. Open a conversation, tap the contact or group icon at the top, then tap Photos. Tap Edit, then Select, and delete the ones you do not need.

What System Data is, and why it grows

System Data is space iOS uses for caches and temporary files. It grows and shrinks on its own and you cannot delete it directly. A restart often brings it down. If it stays very large for days, updating iOS or backing up and restoring the phone are the remaining options.

Cleaner apps cannot reach System Data either. iOS does not let any app clear another app's cache.

Check the result

Go back to Settings, General, iPhone Storage and compare the free space with the figure you wrote down. If you use iCloud Photos with Optimize iPhone Storage on, the phone holds smaller copies of your photos, so deleting them returns less space than their full size.

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