How To Clean Your Internal Storage



Internal

  1. How To Clean Your Internal Storage
  2. Free Internal Storage

The longer you use your phone, the bigger cache it will have. Cache can be important, as it speeds up data retrieval. However, these are stored in your phone's internal memory, and most of them are not frequently used. Clearing the cache is a good way to get more internal space.

  • Cleaning out your PC on a regular basis frees up drive space and helps it run better. One of the easiest ways to clean up files you no longer need is by using Disk Cleanup. Open Disk Cleanup by clicking the Start button. In the search box, type Disk Cleanup, and then, in the list of results, select Disk Cleanup.
  • Unlike your iPhone or iPad, your Apple Watch doesn't have a lot of space for apps, music, podcasts, and all the other content you might try to store on it.The amount of storage varies from series.

Optimized Storage helps you save storage space space by storing your content in iCloud and making it available on demand:

  • When storage space is needed, files, photos, movies, email attachments, and other files that you seldom use are stored in iCloud automatically.
  • Each file stays right where you last saved it, and downloads when you open it.
  • Files that you’ve used recently remain on your Mac, along with optimized versions of your photos.

If you haven't yet upgraded to macOS Sierra or later, learn about other ways to free up storage space.

Find out how much storage is available on your Mac

Choose Apple menu  > About This Mac, then click Storage. Each segment of the bar is an estimate of the storage space used by a category of files. Move your pointer over each segment for more detail.

Click the Manage button to open the Storage Management window, pictured below.

Manage storage on your Mac

Mac studio fix nc15. The Storage Management window offers recommendations for optimizing your storage. If some recommendations are already turned on, you will see fewer recommendations.

Store in iCloud

Click the Store in iCloud button, then choose from these options:

  • Desktop and Documents. Store all files from these two locations in iCloud Drive. When storage space is needed, only the files you recently opened are kept on your Mac, so that you can easily work offline. Files stored only in iCloud show a download icon , which you can double-click to download the original file. Learn more about this feature.
  • Photos. Store all original, full-resolution photos and videos in iCloud Photos. When storage space is needed, only space-saving (optimized) versions of photos are kept on your Mac. To download the original photo or video, just open it.
  • Messages. Store all messages and attachments in iCloud. When storage space is needed, only the messages and attachments you recently opened are kept on your Mac. Learn more about Messages in iCloud.

Storing files in iCloud uses the storage space in your iCloud storage plan. If you reach or exceed your iCloud storage limit, you can either buy more iCloud storage or make more iCloud storage available. iCloud storage starts at 50GB for $0.99 (USD) a month, and you can purchase additional storage directly from your Apple device. Learn more about prices in your region.

How To Clean Your Internal Storage

Optimize Storage

Click the Optimize button to save space by automatically removing watched movies and TV shows. When storage space is needed, movies or TV shows that you purchased from Apple and already watched are removed from your Mac. Click the download icon next to a movie or TV show to download it again.

How To Clean Your Internal Storage

Your Mac will also save space by keeping only recent email attachments on this Mac when storage space is needed. You can manually download any attachments at any time by opening the email or attachment, or saving the attachment to your Mac.

Optimizing storage for movies, TV shows, and email attachments doesn't require iCloud storage space.

Empty Trash Automatically

Empty Trash Automatically permanently deletes files that have been in the Trash for more than 30 days.

Reduce Clutter

Reduce Clutter helps you identify large files and files you might no longer need. Click the Review Files button, then choose any of the file categories in the sidebar, such as Applications, Documents, Music Creation, or Trash.

You can delete the files in some categories directly from this window. Other categories show the total storage space used by the files in each app. You can then open the app and decide whether to delete files from within it.

Learn how to redownload apps, music, movies, TV shows, and books.


Where to find the settings for each feature

The button for each recommendation in the Storage Management window affects one or more settings in other apps. You can also control those settings directly within each app.

  • If you're using macOS Catalina or later, choose Apple menu  > System Preferences, click Apple ID, then select iCloud in the sidebar: Store in iCloud turns on the Optimize Mac Storage setting on the right. To turn off iCloud Drive entirely, deselect iCloud Drive.
  • If you're using macOS Mojave or earlier, choose Apple menu > System Preferences, click iCloud, then click Options next to iCloud Drive. Store in iCloud turns on the Desktop & Documents Folders and Optimize Mac Storage settings.
  • In Photos, choose Photos > Preferences, then click iCloud. Store in iCloud selects iCloud Photos and Optimize Mac Storage.
  • In Messages, choose Messages > Preferences, then click iMessage. Store in iCloud selects Enable Messages in iCloud.
  • If you're using macOS Catalina or later, open the Apple TV app, choose TV > Preferences from the menu bar, then click Files. Optimize Storage selects “Automatically delete watched movies and TV shows.”
  • In you're using macOS Mojave or earlier, open iTunes, choose iTunes > Preferences from the menu bar, then click Advanced. Optimize Storage selects “Automatically delete watched movies and TV shows.”
  • In Mail, choose Mail > Preferences from the menu bar, then click Accounts. In the Account Information section on the right, Optimize Storage sets the Download Attachments menu to either Recent or None.

Empty Trash Automatically: From the Finder, choose Finder > Preferences, then click Advanced. Empty Trash Automatically selects “Remove items from the Trash after 30 days.”

Other ways that macOS helps automatically save space

With macOS Sierra or later, your Mac automatically takes these additional steps to save storage space:

  • Detects duplicate downloads in Safari, keeping only the most recent version of the download
  • Reminds you to delete used app installers
  • Removes old fonts, languages, and dictionaries that aren't being used
  • Clears caches, logs, and other unnecessary data when storage space is needed

How to free up storage space manually

Even without using the Optimized Storage features described in this article, you can take other steps to make more storage space available:

How
  • Music, movies, and other media can use a lot of storage space. Learn how to delete music, movies, and TV shows from your device.
  • Delete other files that you no longer need by moving them to the Trash, then emptying the Trash. The Downloads folder is good place to look for files that you might no longer need.
  • Move files to an external storage device.
  • Compress files.
  • Delete unneeded email: In the Mail app, choose Mailbox > Erase Junk Mail. If you no longer need the email in your Trash mailbox, choose Mailbox > Erase Deleted Items.

Learn more

  • The Storage pane of About This Mac is the best way to determine the amount of storage space available on your Mac. Disk Utility and other apps might show storage categories such as Not Mounted, VM, Recovery, Other Volumes, Free, or Purgeable. Don't rely on these categories to understand how to free up storage space or how much storage space is available for your data.
  • When you duplicate a file on an APFS-formatted volume, that file doesn't use additional storage space on the volume. Deleting a duplicate file frees up only the space required by any data you might have added to the duplicate. If you no longer need any copies of the file, you can recover all of the storage space by deleting both the duplicate and the original file.
  • If you're using a pro app and Optimize Mac Storage, learn how to make sure that your projects are always on your Mac and able to access their files.

Apple automatically gives 5Gb of free storage to every iCloud account, which doesn’t seem like enough at first, but if you play it smart, you can easily get by with just those free 5 GB. This article will help you reduce your iCloud storage so you can downgrade your iCloud storage plan and stop paying for iCloud. See our 7 tips on how to use less iCloud space:

Alternatively, consider clearing more space on your iPhone.

How to see what’s taking up space in iCloud

First, you should see what data you have in iCloud and how much space it’s taking up. To do this, navigate to Settings> Apple ID> iCloud> Manage Storage. The data that typically take up a lot of iCloud storage space are:

  • Photos
  • Videos
  • iCloud backups
  • Email messages with attachments
  • WhatsApp Backups

Note: Movies, apps, books, and music bought in iTunes will not count towards your iCloud storage.
Photostream and the photos uploaded there don’t take any iCloud space because these images are stored locally on the device.

See what is causing you the most trouble and find a tip on how to deal with it below!

Download and delete photos from iCloud

Photos usually use up a lot of iCloud storage space. To reduce iCloud storage you use on photos, you can exclude them from iCloud backups and download your photos and videos to your PC. This way, your precious memories will always be at hand. You will then be able to delete all the photos and videos from your iCloud.

To help you, we have made a program called CopyTrans Cloudly. It will download all the photos in one go and allow you to settle the score with what’s still in your iCloud. You can download and try it here:

Free Internal Storage

After you’ve done that, follow the steps:

  1. Exclude photos from iCloud Backup
  2. To do this, go to Settings> Apple ID> iCloud> Manage Storage> Photos> Disable and Delete. Keep in mind that you won’t be able to restore your pictures from the iCloud backup later.

  3. Back up all iCloud photos to the PC
  4. You can do that in a few clicks with CopyTrans Cloudly. All the photos will be stored on your PC or external hard disk. Download trainer stronghold legends v1.10. If you need help, see this guide on how to download all the photos and videos from your iCloud to your PC.

  5. Delete pictures from iCloud
  6. Now erase all photos from iCloud to create even more iCloud storage space. If you don’t want the new photos to be uploaded to iCloud, you can disable your iCloud Photo Library. If the iCloud Photo Library is still enabled on your iPhone, your new photos will be uploaded to iCloud like before.

  7. BONUS: Transfer the pictures you need from PC to iPhone
  8. If you want to transfer some of the images to your iPhone, use our CopyTrans Photo app to transfer these photos back to your iPhone. By using it in combination with CopyTrans Cloudly, you can truly become the master of your photos! Download and try it here:

    After you’ve done it, transfer the photos to your PC fast and easily!

Extract and delete old iCloud backups

To find information about your iCloud backups, go to Settings> Apple ID> iCloud> Manage Storage> Backup. If your iCloud backups are starting to take too much space – simply extract the important data from them, delete the backups you no longer need and use an alternative backup solution!

  1. Extract the data from iCloud backups

    Take this step if you are not sure what is inside your iCloud backup or it contains some data that you would like to retain. In this case, you can find and extract data from your iCloud backups with CopyTrans Backup Extractor.

  2. After this, you will be prepared to erase old backups from your iCloud storage.

  3. Delete old iCloud backups
  4. Delete all your old iCloud backups – i.e. backups of the devices that you no longer have. To do this, Select the backup> Delete Backup> Disable & Delete. This way you can free up tons of iCloud storage.

  5. Exclude apps from the backup
  6. If you have iCloud backup enabled, every app you install will automatically be backed up. To change this, go to Settings> Apple ID> iCloud> Manage Storage> Backups and tap the icon of your device. Here you can see which apps are included in your iCloud backup and how much space they take. Please note that if you restore this iCloud backup, the app data of the apps you excluded from the backup will no longer be there.

  7. Secure iPhone files locally on the PC
  8. Alternatively, you can create local iPhone backups on the PC with CopyTrans Shelbee. Your contacts, calendars, notes, SMS messages and iMessages, photos and videos, and settings and app documents will be included in the backup. You can also choose to back up to your PC to an external hard drive.

    CopyTrans Shelbee will allow you to make validated backups to your PC which will further be available for full restore or restore of selected components. Also, this is going to be an encrypted backup stored on your PC and not in iCloud. Read our guide on how to restore iPhone without iTunes to learn more.

Delete files from iCloud Drive

You can also delete the files you have stored in iCloud Drive to free up iCloud storage. Go to Settings> Apple ID> iCloud> Manage Storage> iCloud Drive. You will see all the files stored in iCloud Drive. Swipe left and tap on the trash icon to delete the file.

To optimize iCloud storage, you can manage your documents, movies, and other data locally by transferring these files between your PC and iPhone, e.g., with CopyTrans Filey. Deleting heavy files from your iPhone will reduce its backup size and save space on your iCloud storage.

C compiler for windows visual studio code. Most likely you have a lot of content you no longer need. It’s much easier to manage all those files from your PC rather than fish around in numerous apps on your iPhone where media files are probably scattered across different folders. With CopyTrans Filey you can browse through your files in a way that makes sense: find the heaviest, oldest, and latest ones with ease.

How to clean your internal storage

This program is a simple tool to clean up your device by sorting all the app documents in one window by size, date or name and delete the largest ones.

Here you can see an example of sorting by size and then mass deleting.

Clean your mailbox

If you use your iCloud address for your email, emails will also be backed up to your free 5GB of storage. You can delete unnecessary emails with large attachments to quickly get rid of several gigabytes in iCloud.

  1. Open the Mail app.
  2. Swipe left over an email and tap the trash button.
  3. Go to the Trash folder. Tap Edit, and then click Delete All.

Save WhatsApp backups to PC

Nearly everyone has long WhatsApp chat histories which often include photos, videos and GIFs. With iCloud backup enabled for WhatsApp, a significant portion of your iCloud storage will be taken. You can, however, enjoy both conversation history safety and free iCloud if you save messages and your WhatsApp chat history on PC. For that purpose, we developed a cpecific app, CopyTrans Contacts. Download and try it here:

CopyTrans Contacts will allow you to save full chats or chats for a specified period of time in DOC, PDF, TXT, RTF formats. In addition, it can export pictures and attachments to a separate folder on your PC. After you’ve exported what you need, you can exclude WhatsApp from your iCloud backup with peace of mind.

Organize contacts, calendars, notes, reminders

Apple also stores calendars, contacts, and reminders on iCloud servers. These take so little space that Apple does not even show how much space they take.

However, if you do not want to trust your personal information such as contacts and notes to iCloud, use the same trick as with WhatsApp and manage them offline with CopyTrans Contacts.

After you’ve downloaded, see how to organize your contacts, calendars, notes and reminders. If you are just looking to back up your iPhone contacts, CopyTrans Contatcs will also help.

Conclusion

With the tips above, you can easily get by with the free 5GB of iCloud storage. By finding an alternative way to store your photos, videos, and backupsand backing up data locally, you can use iCloud more efficiently and stop worrying about filling up your free iCloud storage.

Combined offer


If you are interested in two or more solutions from our list, you might want to look at our combined application suite, CopyTrans 7 Pack. It will allow you to become the ultimate master of your iPhone by allowing you to manage your music, photos, contacts, calendars, notes, backups and much more.