How To Get Rid Of Other Storage

iPhone 'Other' storage: what is it, and how you can delete information technology

How to costless up space on your phone

(Image: © Apple)

iPhones now offer more storage than always, but without the pick to add a microSD bill of fare, you can still feel as though information technology's not quite enough.

While y'all can be careful with how many photos, videos, or music tracks yous shop on your device, the iPhone's "Other" storage category remains something of a mystery.

Thankfully, in that location are a couple of options to articulate this myriad of leftover files and caches. Hither's how to do some leap cleaning.

How to bank check your iPhone's storage

On your device, open your Settings bill of fare and head into "General", then iPhone Storage.

The colour coded bar will show how your available storage is divvied upwardly, with "Other" appearing as a gray color. It may take a few seconds to summate the full rundown, so merely give it a scrap of time.

Our example below has a lot of "Other" storage, only that could be downwards to running the iOS 14 beta. Apple does say that "Other" storage will fluctuate, so don't panic if it changes from day to day.

What is "Other" storage?

As you'd imagine, "Other" is a fashion of grouping together a huge number of files that don't fit into any other category.

It could exist downloaded Netflix videos, caches from your web browser of selection, or simply a huge amount of messages with attachments.

How to shrink "Other" storage

Option ane: Clear One-time Letters

In settings, head into the "Messages" category and ringlet to "Message History". Your iPhone is set to keep letters forever, but this tin soon atomic number 82 to running out of space.

You tin can swap it to 1 yr or 30 days, which will clear anything beyond those parameters.

Option ii: Articulate Browser Caches

Safari caches can be pretty dense with information, and that comes at the expense of storage. From Settings, caput to "Safari" and and then "Clear History and Website Information" (iOS thirteen or earlier) or "Website Information" (iOS fourteen).

If you're using Chrome instead, there's an option to clear its enshroud, besides. Open Google Chrome, caput into "Settings", and so "Privacy", and "Clear Browsing Data".

Select the sections to remove, then clear them to free upwardly some space.

Pick three: Backup and Reset

Nosotros'd ideally desire to avert this, but Apple's file organization only lets users purge what they allow yous to purge.

This means that sometimes information technology's really easier to simply start once more, restoring the device from a backup.

Connect your iPhone to a PC (and use iTunes) or a Mac (and look for it in the sidebar of Finder). Backup your device using either method, and exist sure to select the choice to "Encrypt local backup" to salve account passwords.

Once that's done, unplug your phone and go to "Settings", "General", "Reset" and "Erase All Content and Settings".

This will wipe your phone entirely, and permit y'all to restore it from either iTunes or Finder. For a full guide, you can find full instructions on how to do this below.

Want a few more iPhone tips ? Try a few of these handy options, and there'due south more as well in the linked article...

Customize your wallpaper

Annihilation saved to your Photos library can exist your Home Screen, Lock Screen, or both. Only find the pic you like, tap the Share button and select Apply as Wallpaper.

Make a Live Photo into a video

A Live Photo's movement tin can be exported in video format for recipients who don't have iPhones: just tap the share sheet, select Salve as Video and the prune volition announced at the meridian of your library.

iPhone tips and tricks — (Image credit: Apple / TechRadar)

Customize Command Middle

With Control Center y'all tin can get fast access to lots of useful things past swiping downward from the top right. You tin can customize the selection of controls and their gild in Settings > Control Centre.