Speed ​​up your iPhone by clearing “Other” storage: here’s how

If you are running out of storage space on your iPhone, that doesn’t mean you have to rush to buy a new one. In fact, please don’t, unless your phone is on its deathbed, because there are tons of easy to learn tips that might help.

The mysterious “Other” storage section may be one of the main sources of memory. If you’ve ever run out of storage and tried to free up some space manually, you might already be familiar with the other storage. If not, let’s see what it is exactly before we dive into how to cut down on this pesky category.

The Other section is a catch-all corner of your iPhone’s storage. Think of it as a place where things like system files and Siri voices can be stored. But the main reason why it can be a memory rodent is the cache. Your cache stores elements of apps or websites, so they can load faster when you use them next. The cache is collected when you browse the web, stream videos or movies, and when you send text messages with images or videos. In apps like Google Maps and Chrome, cached data may soon start to eat up your available storage space on the device.

So, Is Other Storage taking up too much precious space on your iPhone? To verify you will need to go to Settings > General > iPhone Storage. Here, after a while of calculating, you will see a colorful bar graph of the categories occupying your iPhone storage space. The other storage section is usually the gray part on the far right of the graph. (For the purposes of this article, I’m going to assume that your Other section takes up more space than it should.)

Let’s get this out of the way early: A surefire way to dump a lot of the waste in Other storage, although in my experience you may not be able to dump it completely, is reset your iphone. If backing up, wiping, and restoring your iPhone seems daunting right now, here are a few more alternatives to try that should work.

Unload applications

Not to be confused with deleting an app, unloading an app means that the app is deleted from your device, but all data is retained, when you decide to reinstall the app and use it. again. Take advantage of this trick, especially if you have apps like Google Maps, for example, that use a lot of space but don’t store a lot of data. To unload an app, go back to iPhone Storage in Settings> General and tap the app you want to unload, then tap Download the application.

Here’s a tip: In the iPhone Storage section, there is a list of apps with a number next to each name indicating the storage it uses. You can immediately get an overview of applications that hog memory or take up little memory. This will help you decide which one to unload.

Clear Safari cache and close tabs

If you use Safari a lot, your iPhone may be storing web history and data that you just don’t need. To clear Safari’s browser cache, go to Settings> Safari and Clear history and website data. And if you are a Chrome user, here is how to clear Google browser cache.

Closing the tabs also frees up storage space and keeps your device running smoothly. You can manage how often Safari will close open tabs by going to Settings > Safari > Close tabs. You can continue to close tabs manually or let Safari close tabs that haven’t been viewed for a day, week, or month.

Stop storing texts forever

By default, your iPhone stores all the text messages you send and receive … forever. This is handy if you need to search for a 15 month old conversation, but not so handy if you need to reclaim that storage space. To prevent your phone from saving text messages forever, open Settings and press messages. Scroll down until you find Message history and press Keep messages. Switch Always at 30 days or 1 year. A pop-up window will ask you if you want to delete the old messages; tap Wipe off proceed.