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One Simple Trick to Free Up iPhone Storage Space

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We’ve discussed many different ways to clear up iPhone storage space in the past, but here’s one trick that you may not know about.

There are many ways that you can free up storage on your iPhone, from clearing up the Recently Deleted folder to reclaiming the “Other” storage space on your iOS device. However, there’s one trick that we haven’t talked about that can free up gigabytes of space on your iPhone or iPad, and it simply involves deleting apps and reinstalling them.

For some users, storage space isn’t a huge concern, especially if they have a 64GB or 128GB iPhone, but most users have a 16GB or 32GB iPhone that needs constant monitoring so that the storage limit doesn’t get reached. There are things you can do to easily get by with a 16GB iPhone, such as frequently auditing your apps, using the cloud more often, and sticking to casual and lightweight games that don’t take up much storage.

However, if you’re looking for another way to easily clear up storage space on your iPhone, deleting some apps and reinstalling them can surprisingly free up some space on your device.

How it Works

It might seem odd that deleting an app and reinstalling can free up storage space on your iPhone, but it’s true. Apps build up a cache over the course of use, and this cache takes up storage space. Eventually, it can get to the point where it’s taking up a gigabyte or two, especially if you use the app frequently every day.

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Cache is essentially when an app automatically downloads information like text, images, and videos locally to your iPhone so that the next time you open the app, it won’t have to reload all of that information again. Plus, having a cache makes the app load quicker.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing and it can be convenient most of the time, but many apps on iPhone don’t automatically delete older cache after awhile, and instead it all builds up until it takes up quite a bit of storage space.

Facebook seems to be the biggest culprit of this, as one user was able to free up about 2GB of iPhone storage space by deleting the app and reinstalling it. Of course, your mileage may vary, especially depending on how often you use the Facebook app, but it should at least free up a considerable amount of space, especially if you do this with several apps on your home screen.

How to Do it

To free up iPhone storage space, all it takes is a simple app deletion and then reinstalling it. To do this, we’ll be using the Facebook app as an example. Just follow these simple steps:

  • Tap and hold down on the Facebook app icon on the home screen. All the apps will eventually start wiggling.

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  • A small X icon will appear in the upper-left corner of the app icon. Go ahead and tap on it.
  • You’ll get a pop-up confirming whether or not you want to delete the app. Go ahead and tap on Delete.

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  • Restart your iPhone by turning it off and back on again. This will finalize the deletion and get rid of any remaining cache.
  • Go to the App Store and re-download the Facebook app. You’ll most likely need to sign in again when you first open the app.

While most apps have cache stored in the background, you don’t necessarily need to do this with every single app that you have installed. Mainly just the content-heavy apps like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Vine, etc. Again, your mileage will vary, but you should get something out of it, whether it’s a couple hundred megabytes or a couple of gigabytes.

4 Comments

4 Comments

  1. Larry

    01/20/2015 at 9:41 am

    Stuuuuuupid I read this before on g2bm!! Many times if you or any readers here want real news on android apple windows phones I’ve also read GSMARENA.COM

  2. John

    01/24/2015 at 3:56 pm

    Thank you for this useful information that is worth considering.

  3. Karrie

    04/26/2016 at 8:34 pm

    Just delete the whole app, go to Safari, save to homepage. Your welcome! Saves space, you can read messages and respond, and don’t have to have messenger installed. Again, your welcome!

    Karie

  4. Lori

    01/29/2017 at 12:34 pm

    Wow does this work! I deleted one app from my iPad and it freed up almost 9gb of space!! It was a shopping app called Rue La La. I deleted it because it crashed all the time. Unbelievable! I’ve been having space issues on my iPad for over a year now. Problem solved! If you are looking for apps to start deleting and reinstalling, I would suggest to start with the ones that crash a lot.

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