Viewing your iPhone storage. To see how much storage all your apps and data are taking up on your iPhone’s storage, open the Settings app, select General, then iPhone Storage.At the top of the.
Optimised Storage in macOS Sierra and later* can save space by storing your content in iCloud and making it available on demand. When storage space is needed, files, photos, films, email attachments and other files that you rarely use are stored in iCloud automatically. Each file stays exactly where you last saved it, and will download when you open it. Files that you’ve used recently remain on your Mac, along with optimised 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 and 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. This button is only available in macOS Sierra or later.
Manage storage on your Mac
The Storage Management window offers recommendations for optimising your storage. If some recommendations have already been turned on, you will see fewer recommendations.
Store in iCloud
Click the Store in iCloud button and 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 (optimised) 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 50 GB for $0.99 (USD) a month, and you can purchase additional storage directly from your Apple device. Learn more about prices in your region.
Optimise Storage
Click the Optimise button, then choose from these options.
- Automatically remove watched films and TV programmes. When storage space is needed, films or TV programmes that you have purchased from the iTunes Store and have already watched will be removed from your Mac. Click the download icon next to a film or TV programme to download it again.
- Download only recent attachments. Mail automatically downloads only the attachments that you have recently received. You can manually download any attachments at any time by opening the email or attachment, or saving the attachment to your Mac.
- Don't automatically download attachments. Mail only downloads an attachment when you open the email or attachment, or save the attachment to your Mac.
Optimising storage for films, TV programmes and email attachments doesn't require iCloud storage space.
Empty Bin Automatically
Empty Bin Automatically permanently deletes files that have been in the Bin for more than 30 days.
Reduce Clutter
Reduce Clutter helps you to identify large files and files you may no longer need. Click the Review Files button and then choose any of the file categories in the sidebar, such as Applications, Documents, Music Creation or Bin.
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 re-download apps, music, films, TV programmes 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 these settings directly within each app.
- If you're using macOS Catalina, choose Apple menu > System Preferences, click Apple ID, then select iCloud in the sidebar: Store in iCloud turns on the Optimise Mac Storage setting on the right. Then click Options next to iCloud Drive: Store in iCloud turns on the Desktop & Documents Folders setting. To turn off iCloud Drive entirely, deselect iCloud Drive.
In macOS Mojave or earlier, choose Apple menu > System Preferences, click iCloud and then click Options next to iCloud Drive. Store in iCloud turns on the Desktop & Documents Folders and Optimise Mac Storage settings. - In Photos, choose Photos > Preferences and then click iCloud. Store in iCloud selects iCloud Photos and Optimise Mac Storage.
- In Messages, choose Messages > Preferences, then click iMessage. Store in iCloud selects Enable Messages in iCloud.
- If you're using macOS Catalina, open the Apple TV app, choose TV > Preferences from the menu bar and then click Files. Optimise Storage selects “Automatically delete watched films and TV programmes”.
In macOS Mojave or earlier, open iTunes, choose iTunes > Preferences from the menu bar and then click Advanced. Optimise Storage selects “Automatically delete watched films and TV programmes”. - In Mail, choose Mail > Preferences from the menu bar and then click Accounts. In the Account Information section on the right, Optimise Storage sets the Download Attachments menu to either Recent or None.
Empty Bin Automatically: From the Finder, choose Finder > Preferences, then click Advanced. Empty Bin Automatically selects “Remove items from the Bin after 30 days”.
Other ways that macOS automatically helps to 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 Optimised Storage features of Sierra or later, you can take other steps to make more storage space available:
- Music, films and other media can use a lot of storage space. Learn how to delete music, films and TV programmes from your device.
- Delete other files that you no longer need by moving them to the Bin, then emptying the Bin. The Downloads folder is good place to look for files that you may 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 Deleted Items 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 may 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 only frees up the space required by any data that 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 Optimise Mac Storage, learn how to make sure that your projects are always on your Mac and able to access their files.
If your iPhone keeps saying storage is almost full but it’s not, you may want to find out the cause of the issue and fix it to be able to store more items on your device. This guide talks about how you can fix the not enough storage issue on any of your iPhone.
Common iPhone Using Issues
Call & Contacts Problems
Video & Music Problems
iPhone Photo Problems
Other Problems
One of the most irritating issues you can ever face on your iPhone X or any other iPhone model is that your phone shows a notification that says iPhone storage is almost full every few minutes even though you do have free storage available. A lot of iPhone users have complained about this issue. If you happen to be one of the victims, this guide offers a few solutions to get around the issue on your iPhone. Just try them now!
AnyTrans – iPhone Data Transfer
Want to fix iPhone storage but noting on phone problem and backup your iPhone data from iPhone to computer? This article tells you some troubleshooting tips. Keep reading on this post to learn more.

5 Quick Tips to Fix Saying iPhone Storage Full But Nothing on Phone
Method 1. Uninstall Unwanted Apps from Your iPhone
If there are apps lying around but you don’t use them, it’s advised that you get rid of them to free-up memory space on your device. This should help you resolve the iPhone storage is full but it actually does not issue on your device.
To find out what app uses how much memory space, open the Settings app on your iPhone and head to General > Storage & iCloud Usage > Manage Storage. You will see a list of all the apps installed on your device along with the memory space they use. If you find an unused app taking up a large chunk of your memory space, tap on the app and select Delete App to get rid of the app on your device.
After you have deleted some of the apps, you will find that the memory error issue is gone from your device.
Method 2. Clear Cache Files in Safari on Your iPhone

It could be that your iPhone has accumulated cache files over a period of time and those caches have now become too large for your iPhone to handle. In this case, what you can do is to clear the cache files for the Safari browser on your iPhone to free-up memory space.
Clear Safari Cache on iPhone
To do it, launch the Settings app and tap on Safari to open the Safari browser settings. Tap on the option that says Clear History and Website Data to clear Safari cache files.
That should do the trick and your iPhone storage is full issue will likely be gone.
Method 3. Delete the Media Files You No Longer Need
If you have some personal photos and/or videos that you no longer need on your iPhone, you can get rid of them to free-up memory space. Photos and videos are known to be consuming a lot of memory space and deleting them will give you plenty of storage that you can use to install other apps or store other files.
Launch the Photos app on your iPhone and select all the videos and photos that you do not wish to keep. Then, tap on the trash bin icon in the lower-right corner.
Once you’ve done, you’ll find that you’ve gained a lot of new memory space to use for other files.
Method 4. Reset All the Settings on Your iPhone
If the above solutions didn’t work for you, you may want to try resetting all the settings on your iPhone for that matter. Doing so will bring all the settings back to the factory state and you can start afresh.
Reset All Settings on iPhone
It’s easy to reset all the settings at once on your iPhone, all thanks to the settings app. Open the Settings app and head to General > Reset and tap on Reset All Settings. Follow the instructions displayed on your screen and you will have successfully reset all the settings to the defaults.
Use your iPhone for some time after you have reset your settings and see if you get the storage error anymore.
Method 5. Restore Your iPhone using iTunes on Your Computer
Sometimes restoring your iPhone fixes many issues that you may be facing on your device. Also, it’s pretty easy to restore an iPhone using iTunes as the entire procedure is straightforward. You just need to click a few options here and there and your iPhone is restored.
How To See Storage On Mac
Plug-in your iPhone to your computer using a suitable cable and open the iTunes app. Select your device in the app and open the Summary tab. Then, choose the option that reads Restore iPhone to restore your iPhone. Follow the on-screen instructions and you will be able to restore your iPhone.
There you go. Your issue is likely now resolved and you may add new items to your device without getting the storage error.
Restore iPhone from iTunes will erase all the existing content on your iPhone, please make sure you’ve made a full backup before restoring.
The Bottom Line
My Mac Storage Is Full Of Apps Download
When your iPhone says not enough storage but there is, the above solutions are what you need to fix the problem on your device. With all of these fixes at your disposal, you’ll certainly be able to get rid of the storage issue on your iPhone.
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