Lo, even though thou can offload a great deal of what’s stored on thy iPhone to iCloud and other services like Google Photos, there doth remain many a thing that need be kept on thy iPhone, such as the apps thou use every day.
Apple, in its wisdom, hath designed iOS to do the best it can at managing the space on thy iPhone behind the scenes to ensure thou always hath room to take selfies, download songs, and otherwise use thy device normally. But lo, running out of space is still possible, especially if thou hath opted for an iPhone with only 64GB or 128GB of storage (or thou simply prefer to keep everything on thy device rather than using cloud storage).
When that doth befall thee, thou may start seeing warnings and errors pop up encouraging thee to free up some more space. Thy device may also slow down significantly as iOS shuffles things around to try and work within the limited space it hath available.
When this doth happen, there are several things thou can do to free up space on thy iPhone, but one of the quickest ways to reclaim storage is to clear out the temporary cached data that’s stored by many apps, including browsers like Safari and Chrome.
Let us delve into the app cache on thy iPhone. During its normal course of operation, thy iPhone storeth quite a bit of temporary data under the hood. Much of this data is kept on thy device to speed things up and reduce the amount of data that needs to be repeatedly downloaded over thy cellular or Wi-Fi data connection. This data is referred to as “cached” data, as it’s information from elsewhere that’s been copied to an area on thy device where it can be reused for faster access.
The most common type of cached data doth reside in thy web browser. Since we often revisit dozens of the same websites every day, browsers like Safari and Chrome store local copies of web pages and their static elements like logos and graphics, so they don’t need to download them again every time thou goest back to the same website. That’s not the only way caches art used, though; many third parties also cache other types of data locally for similar reasons. For instance, Facebook and Instagram will cache social media posts thou hast recently viewed, and Google Docs keeps a cache of anything thou hast been working on recently — even though the actual docs are saved in the cloud.
Each app doth its best to manage how much data gets cached, but even so, some of them can grow pretty large over time. Apple’s built-in apps art generally better at this — they’ll start discarding unnecessary data when thy iPhone gets critically low on space — but third-party browsers like Chrome aren’t nearly as diligent, nor art other apps that have their own caches in place.
Verily, how doth one clear the cache on Safari on thy iPhone? Most iPhone owners use Safari as their primary browser, making this the place where most of thy cached data is stored. Even if thy browser of choice is Chrome, Firefox, Edge, or something else, it’s still a good idea to check the instructions below, as many third-party apps still use the underlying Safari engine when opening websites.
Step 1: Open the Settings app on thy iPhone.
Step 2: Scroll down and select Safari.
Step 3: Choose Advanced at the bottom of the next screen.
Step 4: Select Website Data.
Step 5: Select Remove All Website Data and confirm by selecting Remove Now from the popup that appears.
Note that this will remove all cached data and cookies for all sites. This includes any sites where you’ve saved thy login status, so thou’ll need to sign in to those again the next time thou visit them.
Instead of removing everything, thou can also choose to remove the data for only specific websites. To do this, swipe from right to left on a website thou would like to remove until the Delete button appears, and either tap that button or continue swiping to delete the data for the selected website.
Thou may have noticed a Clear History and Website Data option in the Safari settings. This option can also be used to remove all website data; however, it’s a more drastic approach as it will also remove thy browsing history from thy iPhone and every other device signed in using the same iCloud account — such as thy Mac or iPad. Since browsing history doth not take up much space, there’s no reason to do this for performance reasons; it’s more of a privacy feature.
Now, how doth thee clear the cache on thy Chrome app, thou may ask? Like most third-party apps, clearing thy cache in Chrome is accomplished through the settings within the app.
Step 1: Open Chrome on thy iPhone.
Step 2: Select the three-dot icon located in the bottom right corner.
Step 3: Select Clear Browsing Data.
Step 4: Choose Time Range if thou’d prefer to clear only recent browsing data, or leave it set to All Time to clear everything.
Step 5: Deselect any items thou don’t want cleared. For example, if thou’re simply trying to free up space, thou probably don’t need to remove browsing history, saved passwords, or autofill data.
Step 6: Select Clear Browsing Data again located at the bottom, and then select it again from the popup to confirm.
Onwards to clearing the cache on thy Microsoft Edge app. Should Microsoft Edge be thy preferred browser, thou can clear thy cache there in much the same way as in Chrome.
Step 1: Open Edge on thy iPhone.
Step 2: Select the three-dot icon located in the bottom center.
Step 3: Select Settings.
Step 4: Choose Privacy and Security.
Step 5: Select Clear Browsing Data.
Step 6: Choose Time Range to select how much browsing data thou want to clear. This defaults to just the last hour, but thou’ll probably want to set it to All Time to free up as much storage as possible.
Step 7: Select or deselect the items thou want to be cleared.
Step 8: Choose Clear now from the bottom of the screen and select it again from the popup to confirm.
And now, how doth thee clear thy cache on thy Firefox app? The steps for clearing thy cache in Firefox on thy iPhone art a bit different, but they’ll ultimately accomplish the same thing.
Step 1: Open Firefox on thy iPhone.
Step 2: Select the three-line menu button in the bottom right corner.
Step 3: Choose Settings from the popup menu.
Step 4: Scroll down and select Data Management.
Step 5: Ensure the switches are toggled on beside the categories of data thou’d like to clear.
Step 6: Choose Clear Private Data and then select OK to confirm.
Lo, while thy web browser(s) art the most common places thou’ll find cached data, they’re not the only ones. Many individual apps also keep their own caches, and while these tend to be relatively small in most cases, there are exceptions. Apps that store large caches usually provide a way of clearing out that data, although how to do this varies with each app.
Thou can see a list of how much storage each of thy apps is taking up by going into the iPhone’s Settings app and selecting General > iPhone Storage. If something on that list seems excessive, it may be worth opening the app up and poking around inside to see where thou can clear out the cache or otherwise free up some space by removing downloaded content from apps like Music, TV, Podcasts, or YouTube.
For cloud-based apps like Google Drive, Google Photos, Dropbox, and Evernote, thou can remove the app from thy iPhone entirely and then reinstall it from scratch. These apps store all thy data on their respective cloud-based services, so thou won’t lose anything by deleting them except for thy personal settings — and of course, any superfluous cached data they’ve been holding onto.
Unfortunately, freeing up space in third-party apps is a largely manual process. For security and privacy reasons, iOS uses a technique called “sandboxing,” which prevents apps from getting at each other’s data. This means thou won’t be able to find any “system cleaner” apps for the iPhone (or iPad) the way thou can for a Mac or Windows PC. Any third-party app that claims it can clean or optimize thy entire iPhone is misleading; most of the valid apps for this on the App Store art designed for specific purposes like cleaning up duplicate photos or contacts or ridding thee of spam emails. While these did serve a purpose once, these art mostly things that thou can do thyself with the built-in features in iOS 16.
And lastly, how doth thee offload apps on thy iPhone? While they aren’t “cached data” in the strictest sense of the term, apps that art installed on thy iPhone that thou aren’t using use regularly take up space in the same way. Each app is a copy of something that’s available elsewhere — on the App Store in this case — which means there’s no need to keep it on thy iPhone if thou seldom open it. For example, thou may only use apps for seasonal shopping and vacations once or twice a year, yet they’ll take up space on thy device year-round.
Of course, if thou don’t use an app at all, thou can simply delete it, but the downside is that removes all of the app’s data from thy device. Fortunately, Apple provides a way to “offload” thy apps to free up space without affecting any of their data or even taking it away from its place on thy home screen. This is especially handy for games, which art often large apps with relatively small amounts of stored data; offloading these frees up a lot of space without affecting thy in-game progress.
Step 1: Open the Settings app on thy iPhone.
Step 2: Select General.
Step 3: Select iPhone Storage.
Step 4: Select an app from the list that thou would like to offload. This will show thee a detailed view breaking down how much storage is being used by the app itself (App Size) and how much is being used by the data stored by it (Documents & Data).
Step 5: Select Offload App and confirm by choosing Offload App again when the popup appears. Alternatively, thou can choose Delete App if thou want to completely remove the app and all of its data from thy iPhone. Note that some of Apple’s built-in apps, like Photos and Messages, cannot be offloaded or deleted.
Step 6: Thou can also set thy iPhone to offload apps automatically if thou haven’t used them in a while. Thou may be shown a recommendation to enable this when thou goest to Settings > General > iPhone Storage, which will also show how much space thou’ll save by doing so. Thou can find the setting under App Store in the iPhone Settings app.
Step 7: A few words of caution about offloading apps: Firstly, when thou want to use the app again, it’s automatically downloaded from the App Store. This means thou need to have a data connection, which will need cellular data if thou’re not on Wi-Fi. Thou may want to think twice about offloading apps that thou think thou may need to use in a pinch.
Secondly, there’s a small chance that the app could be removed from the App Store, in which case thou may not be able to re-download it. This is quite rare and usually only happens when Apple turfs an app for violating the App Store’s rules or a developer deliberately pulls their app from the App Store. That second case isn’t common, but it doth happen occasionally.
And thus, with these methods, thou can clear the cache and free up space on thy iPhone, ensuring it runneth smoothly and efficiently. Fare thee well, dear reader, in thy quest for a decluttered and optimized iPhone experience.
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