If you get “iPhone storage is almost full” notifications, it means your device has very little free storage space left—usually less than 10% of its total capacity.

While it might appear minor, low storage can impact the performance of your iPhone. With insufficient space, it can’t update or sync automatically, may slow down, and won’t let you add new photos or apps.

So, if you see this notification and want your iPhone to keep running smoothly, you’ll need to free up storage right away.

In this article, we’ll explain how to fix the issue and keep your iPhone’s functionality.

How Do I Сheck That Takes Up the Most Space on My iPhone?

Before you start cleaning up your iPhone’s storage, it’s best to figure out which file types take up the most space. 

• Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
• Tap on “General” and select “iPhone Storage.” Your device will take a moment to load and then display a storage bar graph that shows how much space each category uses.
• Look at the size of each section in the bar graph—it gives you a clear visual of what’s taking up the most storage.

The biggest file types in storage are usually photos (everything in the Photos app) and apps (all downloaded apps and their data). However, your personal iPhone usage can influence these numbers. Below are the possible storage categories you might see, along with a brief explanation of what each one includes:

• Media – this category includes music, videos, podcasts, and other multimedia files not stored in the Photos app.
• Mail – this category accounts for all the data stored within the Mail app, including emails and their attachments.
• Apple books –  includes all content downloaded through the Apple Books app, such as books and PDFs.
• Messages – category covers texts, images, videos, and other attachments sent and received in the Messages app.
• iCloud Drive – files and documents saved in iCloud Drive, accessible across all devices signed into your iCloud account.
• Other – encompasses various data types that do not fit into the other categories, such as system data, Siri voices, and system settings.
• System – the operating system itself, including system files and caches.

7 Ways to Get Rid of iPhone Storage Is Almost Full Notification

After checking your iPhone storage, delete files from the largest data category. In the following sections, we’ll walk you through how to free up space in each major storage category.

To get rid of the “iPhone storage is almost full” notification, deleting files from just one major category is usually enough. But if you want to free up as much space on your iPhone as possible, consider clearing multiple categories.

1. Clean Up Your Photos App

Your iPhone captures high-resolution photos and videos, and over time, these files can quickly take up tens of gigabytes in your Photos app. To free up space, you need to delete unnecessary photos or large videos. Since you probably already know how to delete photos, we’ll focus on how to find and remove large videos.

Unfortunately, the Photos app doesn’t let you sort videos by size or duration, so you’ll have to scroll through your entire gallery manually. Instead, try using a cleaner app. We’ll use the free Clever Cleaner app for iPhone as an example and talk about its “Heavies” feature. This function automatically finds large videos in your Photos app and lets you delete them easily. It also allows you to remove duplicate and similar photos, clear out screenshots, and even convert Live Photos to still images. These features are really helpful if you want to reduce the storage space used by your photo library.

1. Install Clever Cleaner for iPhone from the App Store. Then, open the app and grant the necessary permissions to access your Photos app.

2. After launching Clever Cleaner, it opens on the ‘Similars’ tab. To concentrate on large files, navigate to and select the ‘Heavies’ function at the bottom of the function panel.

3. Tap the ‘Sort by’ menu at the top and choose ‘By Size.’ This organizes the displayed videos according to their file size.

4. Review the sorted list and tap on any video you wish to delete, or use ‘Select All’ at the top to mark all displayed videos.

5. Tap the red ‘Move to Trash’ button located in the middle. This places the selected files into the app’s trash, where you can review and possibly restore them if necessary.

6. To delete the videos, drag the red slider and press ‘Delete’ when the confirmation window appears.

7. The deleted videos will then move to the ‘Recently Deleted’ album in the Photos app, where they will be automatically removed after 30 days unless you manually delete them sooner.

Video Tutorial

2. Delete Unnecessary Files From the Files App

Not all videos and photos are stored in the Photos app—many end up in the Files app along with PDFs, archives, and other media files. This can use up a lot of storage. If your storage check shows that the Media category is one of the largest, make sure to clear out any unnecessary files from the Files app.

1. 1. Tap the Files app icon on your home screen to open it.
   2. Navigate to the ‘Browse’ tab, then choose ‘On My iPhone.’ Review each folder to identify files you can delete.
   3. To delete a file, press and hold on the file to reveal deletion options, or swipe left on the file and press ‘Delete.’ If you need to select multiple files, tap the ‘Select’ button located at the top right of the screen.

1. 1. After selecting the files, tap the trash can icon to move them to the ‘Recently Deleted’ folder, which you will typically find the ‘Recently Deleted’ folder listed under ‘Locations,’ or it might appear when you navigate to ‘On My iPhone.’
   2. Tap on the ‘Recently Deleted’ folder to open it, then select the files you wish to delete permanently.

3. Uninstall Unnecessary Programs

If you check your storage and see that apps are taking up the most space, the easiest way to free up space—and get rid of the “iPhone storage is almost full” message—is to delete the apps you rarely use. This will remove both the app and all its associated data.

1. 1. 1. Tap the Settings icon on your iPhone’s home screen.
      2. Scroll to and select “General” and tap on “iPhone Storage.” This action will display a list of all your applications, along with the amount of space each one uses.
      3. From the list, tap on the application you wish to delete.
      4. Tap “Delete App” at the bottom of the screen and also confirm your choice by tapping Delete App again in the pop-up menu.

Note that you also have the option to offload an app. This removes the app while keeping its data on your iPhone, which is great if you don’t want to lose things like game progress or video editor templates. However, offloading frees up less space than completely deleting the app and its data.

4. Clear the Apps Cache

Apps naturally build up cache—files, images, and data that help speed up loading times. While most apps require you to delete the app to clear the cache, some let you do it right from the app. For example, browsers and social networks like Telegram, Snapchat, and TikTok offer built-in cache-clearing options.

Let’s start with the steps to clear the cache in a browser, using Google Chrome as an example:

1. 1. Open Google Chrome on your iPhone.
   2. Tap the three dots at the bottom right corner to access the menu and tap “Delete Browsing Data.”
   3. Choose the types of information you want to clear, such as Cookies, Site Data, and Cached Images and Files, and tap “Delete data” at the bottom of the screen.

If Safari is your primary browser, clearing its cache and web data works differently—you’ll need to do it through your iPhone settings. First, open the list of apps on your iPhone. Then, scroll down and tap Safari. Next, select Clear History and Website Data. Finally, confirm your choice by tapping Clear History and Data to complete the process.

For other apps, you’ll need to check their settings individually to find the cache-clearing option. It’s usually labeled as “Clear Storage,” “Clear Cache,” or something similar. Since each app has a different interface, the exact location of this setting may vary.

5. Delete Old Messages and Their Attachments

If your iPhone’s Messages app is full, deleting old messages is a great way to free up space and get rid of the “iPhone storage is almost full” notification.

1. 1. Open the Messages app on your iPhone and swipe left on any conversation you wish to delete.
   2. Tap “Delete” to remove the entire conversation.
   3. Confirm your choice by tapping Delete again in the pop-up menu.

If you want to free up space without losing important text messages, consider deleting just the multimedia files from your conversations instead of the entire thread. This way, you keep the texts while removing the larger files that take up most of your storage.

1. 1. Open the Settings app on your iPhone, tap “General,” and then select “iPhone Storage.”
   2. Scroll down and tap Messages.
   3. You will see categories such as Top Conversations, Photos, Videos, and other types of attachments. Tap on each category to view specific items.
   4. Tap “Edit” in the upper right corner of the screen.
   5. Select the items you want to delete and tap on the trash icon to remove the selected items.

6. Clean up your iCloud Drive

iCloud Drive is another area that can take up a lot of your iPhone’s storage. It’s Apple’s cloud storage service where you can securely store documents, photos, and music, and access them from any device. Files saved in iCloud Drive sync across all devices signed into your Apple ID, so you can get to them on your iPhone, iPad, Mac, and even via the web at iCloud.com. Cleaning up iCloud Drive works much like deleting files from the Files app on your iPhone.

1. 1. Open the Files app on your iPhone. Tap Browse at the bottom of the screen.
   2. Under Locations, select iCloud Drive.
   3. Browse through the folders to find the files or documents you no longer need.
   4. Tap Select in the top right corner of the screen, then choose the files you want to delete and tap the trash can icon to move the selected files to the Recently Deleted folder.
   5. To permanently remove these files, navigate back to the Browse tab, tap on the Recently Deleted location, which you will find listed under iCloud Drive. Here, you can select Delete All to remove all items or select specific items to delete permanently.

7. Clear Other Media Content

Since everyone uses their iPhones differently, providing detailed steps for every app isn’t practical. However, beyond the basic methods we’ve covered, here are some additional file types that can take up storage space and are worth checking:

• If you subscribe to podcasts and have automatic downloads enabled, episodes can pile up fast. Regularly deleting ones you’ve already listened to or no longer need can help free up space.
• Over time, you might accumulate ringtones you no longer use. Removing them can recover a bit of storage.
• Longer recordings can take up a lot of space. Go through your memos and delete any you no longer need.
• E-books and PDFs can consume storage, especially those with many images. Remove any you’ve finished or don’t need anymore
• Downloaded songs and albums can take up a lot of space. Consider switching to streaming or deleting tracks you no longer listen to.
• If you use the Notes app to save images, long text entries, or attachments, it can accumulate a lot of data. Regularly delete outdated or unnecessary notes.
• Apps like iMovie and Photoshop Express store large project files. Once you’ve finished or exported a project, delete it to free up space.

Conclusion

Whether you clear files from just one category or use all the methods step by step, you should be able to get rid of the “iPhone storage is almost full” notification.

If you’ve followed these steps and still see the warning, the issue might be due to a system glitch or a storage calculation error. In that case, try restarting your iPhone. If the problem persists, a factory reset might be necessary. Just keep in mind that resetting your iPhone will erase all data and restore it to its original state, so be sure to back up anything important first.

It is also crucial to maintain the cleanliness of your iPhone’s storage after clearing it to avoid repeating these methods in the future.