Probably one of the first things you did when you turned on your new iPhone was download a bunch of apps. And before you know it, after taking selfles, capturing timelapse videos and installing just about every social, dating and gaming app, you got an alert saying your storage is almost full.
If you haven't heard by now, even if you buy a 16 GB, you aren't able to really use all 16 GB because some of that space is sucked up by iOS (which is why plaintiffs filed a lawsuit in California federal court against Apple, seeking more than $5 million for false advertisement.)
Even though you might not have thought of suing Apple, there are still ways you can free up space on your iPhone in a less radical way. Follow these tips and to better manage that new iPhone 6.
1. Check What Your Working With
The first step to freeing up space is to see exactly what is hogging up storage. You will having to go into Settings > General > Usage > Manage Storage. You will see the amount of space you have available and how much space is being used up. After taking time to load, a list of your apps will pop up in the order in which they take up the most GBs.
The numbers seen when in Manage Storage includes how much space the app uses itself and how much data is inside. While some apps appear to take up less storage than others, once you tap on the app icon, you will be able to see the full app size. For example, music apps like Spotify can hold lots of files, meaning more GBs used than what is listed in the first drop down list.
2. Store Your Photos Elsewhere
Yeah, we love having all our selfles on our phones, but if they are already on Instagram then maybe it's time to delete them to free up space. If you don't want them deleted, than your best bet is to store them elsewhere. You can connect your iPhone to your Mac and back up photos to iPhoto, or to iCloud. When you sign up for iCloud, you get 5 GB of free storage to store photos, music, apps and books and can upgrade for more.
You may also store your photos to Dropbox or Google+, which gives you unlimited storage for photos taken with an iPhone. Download the app and select Auto-Back Up in the Settings.
3. Delete What You Don't Need
When backing up your photos, you may notice that your iPhone saves two of the same image. Your photo saves a second copy using High Dynamic Range (HDR) if your phone has this feature selected on. You can either delete the less quality image, or if you take your photos in HDR, deselect Keep Normal Photo under Settings > Photo & Camera.
Also delete unused games. If you don't use the app all the time, delete it. Some games take up more than 1 GB because of graphics. Common offenders of this are Angry Birds and Oregon Trail. You can delete apps in Settings > General > Manage Storage and tap on apps to see the "Delete App" option.
4. Don't Keep Messages
Okay, we all love to reminisce about that time that person we were into texted us something sweet, but it's time to get rid of old messages that are taking up space. Part of the iOS 8 upgrade is a feature that let's you automatically delete old messages. Go To Settings > Messages > Keep Messages. You can choose to keep messages for 30 days or one year.
5. Stop Downloading Music
Just kidding, well not really. Music can take up a lot of space on your iPhone, especially if you have a huge playlist. While some music apps take up lots of space like explained above, it can be worth it if you delete all the songs from your iTunes and listen to music through apps like Songza, Pandora or Spotify. Or you can sign up for iTunes Match, which costs $25, but might be worth it if you're a music junkie. This service lets you track your iTunes library through the cloud. Click on the cloud icon and the song will download to your phone.
[Photo Credit: William Hook/Flickr]
