How to free up storage on iPhone without losing photos
· by Davyd Hruts
Open Settings, General, iPhone Storage to see what takes the space. On most phones it is Photos, and inside Photos it is video. Delete or compress the largest videos first, then clear duplicates and screenshots, then compress the heavy photos you want to keep. Finish by emptying Recently Deleted, or the space does not come back for 30 days.
1. See what is actually full
Settings, General, iPhone Storage draws a bar of what takes the space, app by app. Wait a few seconds for it to finish counting. If Photos is at the top, which it is on most phones, the rest of this guide is for you. If an app like Messages or WhatsApp is at the top, its own attachments are the problem, and the same screen lets you review large attachments.
2. Start with video
A phone does not fill evenly. One minute of 4K video at 30 frames per second takes about 170 MB, and about 400 MB at 60. A hundred ordinary photos take roughly the same space as one long clip. Sort your videos by size and look at the largest twenty first: that is usually where gigabytes come back, not in the thousands of small photos.
- In Photos, open Media Types, Videos.
- Delete the clips you do not need.
- For clips you want to keep, trim the dead minutes or compress them (step 5).
3. Clear duplicates and screenshots
Photos has a Duplicates collection under Utilities since iOS 16; Merge keeps the best copy and combines the details. Screenshots have their own media type: open it, tap Select, and drag across a row to select many at once. Screenshots are small one by one, but a few years of them add up to a gigabyte or more.
4. Turn on Optimize iPhone Storage, if you use iCloud Photos
Settings, your name, iCloud, Photos, Optimize iPhone Storage keeps small versions on the phone and full ones in iCloud. It frees a lot at once, but it only moves the problem: the iCloud plan fills instead, and photos download again when you open them.
5. Compress what you keep
The photos and videos nobody wants to delete are often the heaviest: 48 MP ProRAW frames, PNG screenshots, long 4K clips. Re-encoding them as HEIC or HEVC at high quality keeps the picture and the resolution and gives back a third or more of the size. A photo already stored as efficient HEIC has little left to give.
6. Empty Recently Deleted
Deleted photos stay in Recently Deleted for 30 days, and the space is not free until they leave. Open Photos, Utilities, Recently Deleted, and delete them for good once you are sure.
Questions
Why did deleting photos not free any space?
They are in Recently Deleted for 30 days. Empty it, and check iPhone Storage again after a minute: iOS recounts slowly.
Does Offload Unused Apps delete my data?
No. It removes the app itself and keeps its documents and data, so reinstalling brings everything back. It helps when apps, not photos, fill the phone.
Is iCloud the answer to a full iPhone?
Only partly. Optimize iPhone Storage frees the phone by moving originals to iCloud, which then needs a big enough plan. Deleting and compressing reduces the library itself, on both.