iPhone Storage, Background App Refresh
iPhone Storage
The iOS software will analyze how much space each app uses to monitor the storage on your iPhone. If you want to view the storage on your device you can also do that in Settings, iTunes, or the Finder on your computer.
Your iPhone will automatically free up space if your iPhone is running low on storage while you’re installing an app, downloading music, updating iOS, recording videos, and then some.
If you are running low on storage and you want to free up space your iPhone has the ability to remove some of your stored data such as files in your iCloud Drive, streamed music and videos, and other unused parts of apps that you don’t need. It can also clear the cache on your device and remove temporary files. Your device won’t delete any personal information like photos, videos, contacts, notes etc. It will only But remove storage items that are no longer needed and can be downloaded again in the future.
Use your device to check its storage
If you want to check the storage on your iPhone:
- Navigate to Settings > General > iPhone Storage
Underneath the bar at the top that shows how much storage you are currently using, there will sometimes be a list of suggestions that your iPhone recommends for optimizing your device’s storage. Beneath this list (if there is one) you will see a list of installed apps and the amount of storage each one uses. Click on an app’s name to view more information about its storage. Any cached data or temporary data in your iPhone may not be counted as usage.
When you click on the apps to view details you can choose to:
- Offload the app: This will free up storage that the app is using, but it wont delete the app’s documents or data.
- Delete the app: This will remove the app and any related data.
- Depending on the which app you’re working with, you may be able to delete some of its documents and data.
If your iPhones storage limit is reaching its full capacity and you can’t free up space, your iPhone will probably send you alerts letting you know that your Storage is almost full. If you start getting these alerts, it would be a good idea to offload some unused apps, delete large or duplicate files or upgrade your iCloud or phone storage (for internal storage to be upgraded you will need to upgrade your phone to a new phone with more internal storage capacity).
Content categories
The used content on your device is divided in these categories:
- Apps: Installed apps and their content, and content stored in “On My iPhone/iPad/iPod touch” directory in the Files app, and Safari downloads
- Photos: Photos and videos stored in the Photos app
- Media: Music, videos, podcasts, ringtones, artwork, and Voice Memos
- Mail: Emails and their attachments
- Apple Books: Books and PDFs in the Books app
- Messages: Messages and their attachments
- iCloud Drive: iCloud Drive content that has been downloaded locally to your device. This content can’t be automatically deleted.
- Other: Non-removable mobile assets, like Siri voices, fonts, dictionaries, non-removable logs and caches, Spotlight index, and system data, such as Keychain and CloudKit Database. Cached files can’t be deleted by the system.
- System: Space taken by the operating system. This can vary based on your device and model.
Use recommendations to optimize storage
As stated above your device might offer suggestions to offload unused apps or delete large or duplicate files in the storage section of your device so you can optimize your iPhone storage. Click on Show All to see all the recommendations for your iPhone.
First view the description of each suggestion so you don’t delete something you want to keep, then click on Enable to turn it on or click on the recommendation to review what content the suggestion will delete.
Background App Refresh
After you switch to a different app, some apps run for a short period of time before they’re set to a suspended state. Apps that are in a suspended state aren’t actively in use, open, or taking up system resources. With Background App Refresh, suspended apps can check for updates and new content.
If you want suspended apps to check for new content, go to Settings > General > Background App Refresh and turn on Background App Refresh. If you quit an app from the app switcher, it might not be able to run or check for new content before you open it again.
