How to Free Up iCloud Space

With only 5GB of free space that users get with their iCloud account, that storage can fill up quickly. Here’s how to free up iCloud space so you don’t run out of space.

iCloud is Apple’s own cloud storage service bundled with its products, and while not a traditional service like Dropbox or Google Drive, iCloud allows users to save certain app data and photos to iCloud for access from any Apple device.

Photos alone can fill up your free storage pretty quickly, and while buying more space for iCloud it’s not the best value, so many users tend to stick with the free 5GB.

The only problem with this is that storage tends to fill up faster, and if you have a lot of photos stored in iCloud Photo Library, 5GB goes through really fast. However, there are a few things you can do to free up space on your iCloud account to make room for more photos that you inevitably need to store in the cloud.

Without further ado, here’s how to free up iCloud space.

Delete Old iCloud Backups

Perhaps the thing that takes up the most space in iCloud is backups. Depending on how much you need to back up, iCloud backups can take up several gigabytes.

An iCloud backup is a backup of your iPhone or iPad that is saved in the cloud. It is a little different from an iTunes backup, as not everything is backed up, mostly only your important data and photos.

To delete an iCloud backup, go into it and go to . Under the section, you should see a backup for your iPhone (if you’ve backed up to iCloud before).

If you have a backup of an old device that you no longer have, it’s a good idea to delete it by tapping on it, scrolling down, and selecting .

If you really want to save space on iCloud, delete all your iCloud backups and back them up to your computer with iTunes.

Disable iCloud Photo Library

You may not know this, but even if you don’t want it to happen, it’s possible that iCloud Photo Library is enabled by default on your iOS device. iCloud Photo Library is a great way to automatically upload photos you take on your iPhone to your other Apple devices via iCloud. These photos are then automatically stored in your iCloud account.

This is a useful feature, but not one that everyone will want to use. You can disable it by going to iCloud Photo Library and going to . From there, turn it off from the top by tapping the toggle switch on the right until it turns gray.

If you don’t want to turn it off and still prefer to use iCloud Photo Library, you can at least save some space by selecting it below.

Delete Unwanted Files

Most iOS apps have the ability to sync data between different Apple devices so you can pick up where you left off on another device. This works when you have the same app on your iPhone and iPad.

However, if you only use an app on one device, that app can back up data to iCloud in hopes of using it on another device. The good news is that you can delete certain files backed up to iCloud. Just go to Settings and go to. In the Documents and Data section, you will see a list of apps that have data in iCloud. For example, Checkmark 2 has data in my iCloud account, but I only use them on my iPhone, so I can delete it by tapping on it, then selecting .

However, keep in mind that these files also act as backups; so if I restore my iPhone to factory settings, all my reminders from Checkmark 2 will be gone, but since the data is in iCloud, I can restore it later.