I remember when I had a 16GB iPhone 5s. It was my first iPhone ever after my LG Cosmos Touch, and I got it for my 13th birthday – don’t do the math.Notificationswere already ruling our lives, but there was an infamous pop-up that plagued my screen every time I opened my phone to do something: iPhone Storage Full.
It was obviously annoying, but it wasn’t a unique issue. We were teenagers, so who cared how much data our brand-newiPhonescould hold? I didn’t even know what a gigabyte was at the time – that was none of my business. But all I knew was that when it was time to take a group picture at the high school football tailgate, we had to use someone else’s phone. I wouldn’t have enough storage unless I made a cut-throat decision to deleteInstagramor some other app at that moment to free up space. I was cutting off arms and legs every time I wanted to get a grainy shot of my friends and me covered in school spirit paint.
iPhone 16 Pro
Apple’s iPhone 16 Pro line features a few notable upgrades over last year’s iPhone 15 Pro, including a dedicated camera button, a new A18 Pro chip, a bigger screen, and several AI-powered Apple Intelligence features.
Well over a decade later, I’m thankful those days are long behind me. I’m currently the proud owner of a 256GBiPhone 16 Pro, and I have more than 4X worth of pictures on my phone than I had in original iPhone storage way back when. Granted, I’ve been in the Apple ecosystem now for 15 years, so it’s no wonder I’ve accumulated such a large amount of data. However, I just recently received my first “iPhone Storage Full” message in over 11 years. This is what I did to take it down and optimize the data on my phone.
My iPhone 16 Pro felt wrong, then I tweaked these 7 settings
Call me dramatic, but my iPhone 16 Pro didn’t feel like mine until I did this.
1Delete large message attachments
You do not need a candid video from 2015
There are all sorts of attachments buried under years of texts in your iMessage app. When I scurried to optimize my storage, the first place I went was General in Settings. There, the very first recommendation was to “Review Large Attachments.” Sure, it makes sense, but there were tons of videos I hadn’t saved in my messages that were living rent-free on my iPhone.
As part of the action item, it told me right off the bat that I could save over 150GB. Upon further review, I found duplicate videos from social media clients, birthday messages, and random saved Snapchat videos that I really had no use for. I reviewed the ones I wanted to keep, and was able to go in and cut out the ones that were taking up real estate.
Here’s how:
How I schedule my iMessages so I never forget to text back
No one can beat my perfectly timed ‘happy birthday’ texts.
2Make sure images are stored as HEIC
Speaking of pictures and videos
The best way to not run out of storage is to store files that take up less space in the first place. This setting is usually a default when you get a new phone, but if you’re a photographer or someone who’s emotionally attached to their JPEGs, you might’ve toggled something on that caused your phone to store photos at a larger capacity than you need to.
iOS defaults to storing photos as HEIC files. It’s a new-ish format that takes up less storage, retains better image quality, and can support multiple images in one file (think Live Photos). You want your photos to be saved as HEIC files for storage’s sake – unless you’re dead-set on exporting them asJPEGs, which is usually the case if you’re editing them in third-party apps. To verify this setting is on, follow these steps:
How I escaped the HEIC nightmare and found a JPEG dream
Get that “High Efficiency” out of my face.
3Clear your browser cache
Unexpected, but effective
This is more of a maintenance thing rather than a last-ditch effort, but every gig counts, right?
I didn’t actually know this until I did it, but your browser cache is hiding some data. That’s right – while it’s temporary data, your browser stores information from the websites that you visit to help it load faster the next time you’re there. You probably haven’t even noticed it before, either. Sure, the cache is probably small, but think about how many websites you visit; all the data builds up to potentially take up a fair amount of your storage.
Here’s how to clear your browser cache:
This will clear the cache for whatever browser app you chose. Be sure to do this with each of your browsing apps.
I was baffled to see that iMessages took up a solid 60% of my iPhone storage.
5 unexpected things I wish I knew before upgrading to the iPhone 16 Pro
I traded in my iPhone 12 Pro and walked into a tech identity crisis.
4Delete unnecessary media
You really don’t need that string from high school, trust me
I have over 55,000 photos and videos on my phone. Everyone knows that nowadays, the Photos app is the culprit when it comes to storage hogs. I mean, some of us have had our iPhones for well over a decade at this point, so there’s a fair amount of memory-accumulation. However, my phone is also littered with apps I haven’t opened since I downloaded them, and the biggest, sneakiest culprit of them all – iMessage.
When that “iPhone Storage Full” warning popped up a few weeks ago, I’ll admit it – I was shocked. How on earth had I even come close to scratching the surface of my 256G? Well, after some digging, I was baffled to see that iMessages took up a solid 60% of my iPhone storage. How?
I’ve got beef with Apple’s frustrating hardware transition
Spare hardware, good sir?
I had to come to terms with the fact that I was a text hoarder. What if I wanted to reminisce on AP Human Geography group chats from 2016 when I was old, 80, and wrinkly? I wouldn’t, and I had to let them go. I truly hadn’t deleted any texts unless they were spam since 2013, so it took a few days of hittingSelectandEditconversations to delete entire threads. I did have to wait 30 days to see the fruits of my tapping-labor – but when that time came, I was able to free up that 60% of my storage.
However, there’s an easier way to do this – and nip it in the bud entirely. If you’re a lot less attached to your old texts (most people are) here’s what you can do:
This way, you don’t have to go through the process of cleaning out your message inbox after years, like I did. You can also go into old podcast apps and delete episodes you’ll never listen to again, Netflix downloads you have no use for, or even the treasure trove of screenshots you’ll never use.
Every gig counts, doesn’t it?
