The 10 best ways to make space on your iPhone

For many iPhone owners, especially those who buy the 16GB models, the struggle to keep the "storage full" alert at bay is real.

The chances are very high that you or someone you know is constantly running out of space on their iPhones.

The ultimate solution is to get an iPhone with more storage, like the 64GB or 128GB models, but it's understandable why many don't splurge for the extra storage considering their higher price tags.

If you or someone you know has been affected by this terrible condition, consult these space-saving and space-making tips.

1. First, do the obvious: Delete apps you don't need.

2. Ditch iTunes and stream your music.

This is pretty much a must-do if you have a 16GB iPhone.

We know, streaming doesn't work in places without a decent cell 4G or LTE signal, but music can take up a giant chunk of iPhone storage and leave no space for photos or anything else.

3. Do this wacky trick to free up hidden storage space in your iPhone.

Apparently, there's a bunch of hidden storage in your phone that you can't normally use, but there's a way of fooling your iPhone into thinking you need that storage for content you buy from iTunes.

You have to pretend that you're renting a movie without actually renting the movie, and the movie's file size needs to be larger than your available storage. 

4. Set your Message app to delete messages after 30 days.

You'd be surprised by how much storage your text messages use up. By default, iOS saves your messages, including picture messages, forever. But you can set them to delete themselves after 30 days.

Audio clips and videos recorded from the Messages app are set to expire after a couple minutes by default, but they won't expire if they're made outside the Messages app, so there could be a bunch of videos sneaking around your messages you've forgotten about, and it's probably worth ditching those messages.

5. Download Google Photos to backup all your photos in Google's cloud. Then delete those photos from your iPhone.

When you start using Google Photos, it'll ask you whether you want to save in high quality or original quality. Choose high quality for unlimited storage. The picture quality of your photos is still barely affected, if at all, when you save them to the Google cloud.

Once all your photos are backed up in the Google cloud, you can delete the photos stored on your iPhone. In the Google Photos app, tap the icon with the three lines on the top left of the screen > Settings > Manage device storage > Free up space > Delete.

Do this every once in a while after taking a bunch of pictures to make space on your iPhone's storage.

6. Turn off Photo Stream.

Apple's Photo Stream feature uploads the photos you take from one of your iOS to devices to all your iOS devices. That has its benefits if you own an iPad and take a lot of pictures with it, but it's not worth keeping it on if your iPhone's storage is always full. 

To turn it off, go to Settings > Photos & Camera > and turn off My Photo Stream.

7. Check for things like documents, videos, podcasts, voice memos, notes, or ebooks that you might have forgotten about and delete them.

Look, that's you getting rid of all the trash from your iPhone.

You can check how much storage things like videos, podcasts, notes, and voice memos are taking up by going to Settings > General > Storage & iCloud Usage > Manage Storage. There you can check apps like Videos, Podcasts, Notes and so on to see if they're taking up more space than they should. 

Then, go to each of those apps and delete the files you don't want anymore.

8. Turn off the Camera app setting that keeps original and HDR duplicate photos.

Using the iPhone's HDR feature for photos is great because it adds filters to an original non-HDR photo that essentially makes your photos look better under certain conditions. 

The problem is that your iPhone is set to save the original non-HDR photo by default, meaning you'll have doubles of photos taken when the HDR feature is on.

Change the default setting by going to Settings > Photos & Camera > and turn off the Keep Normal Photo option at the bottom. 

9. Check photo-based apps like Instagram and VSCO to make sure they're not saving doubles of your photos.

Some photo editing apps like Instagram save the original pre-edited versions of photos. They can also save photos you take from the apps themselves into your iPhone's storage, too.

Go through your photo editing apps and turn off the option to save original photos on your iPhone.

For Instagram, open the app, tap your profile icon on the bottom right, tap the Settings icon on the top right, then turn off the Save original photos settings.

10. Clear you web browser's cached data.

Whichever web browser you use, whether it be Safari or Chrome, it stores a bunch of data designed to speed up its performance.

That said, it's good to clear your web browser's "cache" where all that data is store once in a while, as it can take up quite a bit of space.

For Safari, go to Settings > Safari > Clear History and Data > and tap Clear History and Data again in the popup when it turns red.

For Chrome, go to the Chrome app > tap the three vertical buttons on the top right > Settings > Privacy > Clear All > and Clear All again in the popup below when it turns red.