Is your iCloud storage full? 5 tips to free up space (2024)

If your iCloud storage is full, don't worry; it happens to the best of us. Even if you just bought onebest iPhones, the free 5GB that comes with your Apple ID isn't really long enough, especially if you want to store a lot of photos, files, and iPhone backups.

Granted, buy more iCloud storage or use one of thembest cloud storageis the ideal way to solve a complete iCloud account problem; you can free up a surprising amount of space by simply clearing out the clutter. In this guide, we'll show you five easy ways to free up space in iCloud.

1. Find out what takes up space

Before you start deleting files from iCloud, it's a good idea to figure out which types of files take up the most space. From your device's Settings app, go to iCloud and select Manage Storage.

At the top of the screen, you'll see a bar chart showing the types of files taking up your available iCloud space. For most Apple users, backups, photos, and messages can take up half of your storage space or more. Scroll down for a detailed list of installed apps and how much iCloud storage space they each use.

Now you have a good idea of ​​which changes to your iCloud storage will free up the most space.

Backups of your devices are often the culprit behind an entire iCloud storage space drain. It's entirely possible that you had your old iPhone set to automatically upload backups to the cloud and then never deleted those files. Years later, they're still sitting there, taking up valuable storage space, while the likelihood that you'll need to access that backup in the future is virtually nil.

To delete these files, open iCloud from the Settings app (iOS) or the System Preferences app (MacOS). Then click or tap Manage Backups to view all backups currently stored in your iCloud account. Delete the files you no longer need and you will immediately free up storage space.

While you're here, it's a good idea to check which individual apps are backed up to your iCloud account. Some of these, like your Photos app, may be important to copy to the cloud. But you don't need to save data from every single app on your device. To disable backing up an app, simply tap the status bar to change it from green to gray.

2. Get rid of old messages

Individual text messages and iChat threads can be only a few kilobytes each. But if you've been an iPhone user for years, you may have more than a gigabyte of old messages stored in your iCloud account. The sum of all these messages can be even greater if you send a lot of emojis or images.

To save space, go to the Messages app on your device. From here you can delete individual messages or entire conversations. Keep in mind that deleting messages on one device will also delete them from all your Apple devices.

Alternatively, you can choose to only delete attachments that take up a disproportionate amount of storage space. From a conversation, tap the contact's name and then tap the info button. Select View all photos and then select all the photos you want to delete.

3. Delete email attachments

Just like messages, email attachments can take up a huge amount of space, especially if your iCloud account contains years' worth of emails. Fortunately, you don't have to randomly delete all your emails from storage. iCloud Mail provides an easy way to view emails with attachments, sorted by size.

Open iCloud Mail and select View, then Sort by Attachments. Now you can delete all emails with attachments in just a few clicks. If you don't want to delete very many emails, choose a specific limit, such as 15 MB, and delete all emails with attachments larger than that size.

4. Manage your photo library

Chances are your photo library is taking up most of the space on your iCloud account. After all, the cameras on Apple devices have incredibly high resolutions and more and more people are recording video clips in addition to photos. It's easy to have hundreds of gigabytes of media files in the cloud if you're not careful about managing your library.

Unfortunately, there's no automatic way to find bad photos in your iCloud library. It's up to you to search through your albums and delete unwanted photos. If you have videos stored in the cloud, it's a good idea to go through them and trim them down to just the clips you actually want to keep for posterity.

You'll notice that your available iCloud storage space doesn't immediately change when you delete photos. That's because when you throw them away, photos and videos are not permanently deleted, but rather sent to the Recently Deleted album. To add space back to your cloud account, navigate to the recently deleted album and delete all files from it.

In the future, there are a few things you can do to prevent your photo storage from becoming overflowing. For example, it's a good idea to collect photos as you take them. If it takes five camera taps to take the perfect selfie, immediately delete the four photos you don't need. Likewise, trim videos to only the parts you want to keep and remove any outtakes.

You can also move older albums offline if you don't need them across devices. Moving data to an external hard drive frees up iCloud storage space and can save you money on your cloud storage subscription in the long run.

5. Drive on iCloud Drive

iCloud Drive is where Apple stores copies of all your other types of files, such as documents, PDFs, and application files. Over time, your Drive storage space can become full of junk, just like your messages, emails, and photo libraries.

Cleaning iCloud Drive is easiest from a computer, but it can also be done on an iPhone or iPadiPad. On a Mac, simply go to the iCloud Drive folder in the Finder. You can then sort the files by size, type, or creation date and delete anything you no longer need.

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Because files from all parts of Apple's ecosystem are filtered into iCloud, it's easy to see how your storage space can fill up quickly. Taking a few minutes every now and then to tidy up your storage space can free up space, control clutter, and avoid paying for more storage space. With these five tips you can easily address the most common reasons for a full iCloud account.

If you're still having issues with space, then you should definitely read nowhow to upgrade iCloud storageon iPhone, iPad and Mac. We have some other Apple-themed guides if you'd like to learn more. Find out how youclear cache on MacInhow to clear RAM on iPhone- these are both good first steps if your Mac or iPhone is running a bit slow.

Following:to learnHow to change screen position on Mac.