How to Manage Storage on Your Apple Devices

March 15, 2023 Nishanth Shetty

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You've bought a new iPhone and iPad, or you're just getting used to having more space on your Mac. But how can you manage storage on your devices? The answer is easy: use the settings that already exist! In this guide, we'll walk through how to manage storage on your devices using their built-in features.

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iPhones

Managing storage on an iPhone is easy. You can check your available space at any time, and you can increase or decrease it as needed.

Check disk space: From the Home screen, tap Settings > iCloud > Storage & Backup (or General > About). This will display a list of all the storage devices on your phone that are currently being used by apps and games. If there's more than one drive available, it'll show them all here—this includes iCloud Drive, which acts as a syncing folder for apps like Dropbox or Google Maps. It also includes another common option called "Photos," which is where photos are stored in various formats rather than just having them backed up onto iCloud itself (more on that later).
Increase/decrease disk space: To increase or decrease disk usage on any specific device, tap its icon in this list; doing so will highlight how much space each app uses in comparison to other apps' totals as well as overall usage data from recent months/years since installation date was first set (which we'll discuss next). If you notice an issue with one particular app's performance concerning its allotted monthly bandwidth allowance then go ahead and try deleting it altogether before trying again later down this article!

iPads

Manage storage on an iPad with a cellular connection, Wi-Fi connection, and both at once. To do this:
Open Settings > General > Storage & iCloud Usage > Manage Storage.
Turn off Auto-Protect (if it's turned on).
Tap the toggle next to your storage capacity to turn it off or on. The amount of space you'll save will depend on how much room you're using for other apps and data files.

Mac

macOS has a built-in storage management tool. You can use it to manage your Mac’s storage, but also on any other device that uses the OS.
Use the Storage tab in System Preferences under “Storage” to see all of your devices and how much space each is using (or not using). If you have an external drive or hard drive connected to your computer, its name will appear here as well.
To add additional disks or volumes, click the + button at the bottom right corner of this window; then select New Hardware from this menu—it's found alongside Devices > Disk Drive(s). When you're done adding drives, click Done & Quit for them all to appear at once (but don't close out just yet!).

You can help manage storage on your devices using the settings you've already set.

Tap the Settings app and then tap Cellular. If it's not there, scroll down and tap General.
In iOS 12 or later, tap Cellular Data Usage to see how much data each app is using in real-time. To see how much data other apps are using, tap an item in this list (such as Messages) and then tap Details at the bottom of its screen.

Storage management is an important part of keeping your devices running smoothly. And if you have a large collection of apps and files, it can be hard to keep track of all your storage needs. Fortunately, there are some easy ways to manage storage on Apple devices.

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