How to clean up your iPhone: a 20-minute checklist
· by Sweepr
Open Settings, General, iPhone Storage and clean up whatever sits at the top, usually Photos. Delete or compress the largest videos, clear duplicates and screenshots, review large message attachments, offload apps you never open, and empty Recently Deleted at the end. No app can clear other apps' caches on an iPhone, whatever its ads say.
1. Look before you delete
Settings, General, iPhone Storage lists every app by the space it takes, with recommendations at the top. Give it a few seconds to finish counting. Clean up in that order: the first two or three lines are usually most of the problem, and everything below them is small change.
2. Photos and video
On most phones the photo library is the biggest item, and inside it video takes most of the space: one minute of 4K at 30 fps is about 170 MB. In Photos, open Media Types, Videos, and go through the largest clips first. Then merge exact copies in Utilities, Duplicates, and clear old screenshots in Media Types, Screenshots.
- Delete clips you will never watch again; trim or compress the ones you keep.
- Merge duplicates: Photos, Utilities, Duplicates, Merge.
- Clear screenshots by month: Media Types, Screenshots, Select, drag across rows.
- Empty Photos, Utilities, Recently Deleted, or the space comes back only after 30 days.
3. Messages and chat apps
Settings, General, iPhone Storage, Messages, Review Large Attachments lists videos and photos from conversations, largest first, and swipe left deletes one. In Settings, Messages, Keep Messages, one year instead of forever stops old threads piling up. WhatsApp and Telegram have their own storage screens in their settings, and their media often also sits in your photo library.
4. Apps you never open
Turn on Settings, Apps, App Store, Offload Unused Apps, or offload one app at a time from its line in iPhone Storage. Offloading removes the app and keeps its documents and data, so reinstalling brings everything back. Games and video apps with downloaded episodes are usually the heaviest.
5. Safari, downloads and files
- Safari: clearing history and website data frees a little and signs you out of sites, so do it only if Safari is near the top of the list.
- Files, Downloads: old installers, PDFs and videos saved from the web stay there until you delete them.
- iCloud Drive files kept on the phone: in Files, a long press, then Remove Download, keeps the file in iCloud and frees the phone.
6. Duplicate contacts
Not a storage problem, but part of a clean phone. Since iOS 16 the Contacts app shows Duplicates Found at the top of the list when it sees two cards for the same person; tap it to merge them.
What a cleaner app can and cannot do
An iPhone keeps every app in its own sandbox. A cleaner app can work only on what you give it access to: your photo library, contacts and the folders you open in Files. It cannot clear the cache of Instagram, TikTok or any other app, and it cannot touch System Data. Treat any app that promises to boost or clean the whole phone with suspicion.
Questions
Do I need a cleaner app to clean up my iPhone?
No. Everything in this checklist works with Settings and Photos. An app makes the photo part faster, and that is usually where most of the space is.
Does restarting an iPhone clean it up?
It can shrink System Data, the temporary files iOS keeps, sometimes by a few gigabytes. It does not touch photos, apps or messages.
Will cleaning up my iPhone delete photos from iCloud?
If iCloud Photos is on, yes: deleting a photo on the phone deletes it everywhere. Back up anything you are not sure about before a big clean-up.