As we round our way into the second half of September, many things seem to be happening that we expect at this time of the year. The leaves are starting to change color, football is back and therefore it is acceptable to post up on the couch all day on Sunday, and Apple has announced and released their newest iPhone and iOS update. If you are not an iPhone user, thank you for reading but we must part ways. However, if you use an iPhone, iPad, or and iPod Touch (do they still exist/work?) then carry on because I have a great trick for you! Apple’s iOS 10 was released last Tuesday and since many people I know wait a week or so to install the update in hopes of patches and bug fixes, I thought I would share my favorite hack for clearing out some phone storage that may help, especially if you’re rocking a 16GB phone and are told you don’t have enough space.
Many of us are not so good about regularly backing up our phones and may only do it before these big yearly software updates juuuust in case we are one of the unfortunate ones that ends up with a brick in lieu of a cell phone. So, when you plug your phone into your computer to back up through iTunes (I’m not the only one who still does this, right?) you’ll notice this bar along the bottom of the screen with your phone information:
I have always wondered what the heck the Documents & Data segment was, how did I acquire SO much, and how do I get rid of it? Well, after five years of owning an iPhone I have an answer! Here is a step by step guide on clearing out that bar and hopefully earning about half of your storage back:
1. Back up your phone as normal just in case of anything.
2. Open as follows: Settings > General > Storage & iCloud Usage > Manage Storage
3. I suggest grabbing a notepad for this, just in case. Make a list of all your apps shown on this screen.
4. Other than apps you cannot fully control such as Messages or Photos, click on any app. Facebook is usually a good example!
5. Notice the small grey writing with the app size and below it the Documents & Data bar. App size is how much storage the app needs to exist on the phone. The Documents & Data is how much of your phone storage it is using. This varies but will grow over time depending on how often you use it, click through photos, links, share posts, and so on.
6. Click on delete app – just trust me!
7. Go down the list of apps from the previous screen and delete anything that you can
8. Maybe go into the standard apps and delete things manually like pictures or message threads that have been ongoing since last fall.
9. Open the App Store and using your trusty list (you made a list, right?) re-download all of the apps that you have deleted. Because they only came off of your phone physically and not for real, they should all show the little cloud download button and anything purchased will not charge you again. The only thing that you may need to do is log in to some apps again so make sure you know your passwords!
10. Sync your phone back with your iTunes and viola! Your Documents & Data should be virtually gone!
While this seems like a little bit of a pain, imagine how much quicker your phone will run and how much more room it has! Just like many of us clean out our closets once a year or sort through our college boxes before heading back to campus, a good cleaning of the phone never hurts and lets you enjoy all of the new iOS features without a worry.
Do you know any other space saving tricks? If so, feel free to comment and share those too!
Hope this helps, share with your friends, and bookmark this for next year so you can do it all over before iOS 11 makes an appearance!
