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One simple trick could free up gigabytes of space on your iPhone

Published May 20th, 2015 11:35AM EDT
iPhone Tricks
Image: Zach Epstein, BGR

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Apple’s 2015 iPhone lineup has more available storage space than ever before, but many budget-conscious Apple fans still opt for 16GB when buying their iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus. There’s certainly nothing wrong with that, but having only 16GB of onboard storage can quickly become an issue on smartphones that don’t have expandable memory.

If your iPhone is filling up faster than you expected, there may be one simple trick that will free up a surprising amount of space.

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We spend plenty of time here on BGR offering tips and tricks for smartphone users in an effort to help them get the most out of their beloved phones. We have also shared tips in the past aimed at freeing up storage space — this was particularly important when iOS 8 was released, since so many iPhone and iPad users were unable to upgrade because they didn’t have enough available space to download and install the update.

Now, we want to tell you about another simple trick that could have a surprising impact on your free storage.

If you use Safari a lot to browse the web, watch videos and more, you may have inadvertently clogged up your phone with a shocking amount of website data. As you visit websites, look at images and watch videos, Safari downloads those files into cache and they can really add up over time.

Looking to free up some space? Simply open the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad and scroll down to Safari. Then scroll to Clear History and Website Data, tap and confirm.

That’s it!

As one Reddit user revealed, this simple trick cleared up an astounding 6GB of storage space on his phone. It’s unlikely that you watch quite as many videos as he does, but we’ve spoken to plenty of people who freed up hundreds of megabytes or even over a gigabyte by clearing out web data.

Zach Epstein
Zach Epstein Executive Editor

Zach Epstein has been the Executive Editor at BGR for more than 10 years. He manages BGR’s editorial team and ensures that best practices are adhered to. He also oversees the Ecommerce team and directs the daily flow of all content. Zach first joined BGR in 2007 as a Staff Writer covering business, technology, and entertainment.

His work has been quoted by countless top news organizations, and he was recently named one of the world's top 10 “power mobile influencers” by Forbes. Prior to BGR, Zach worked as an executive in marketing and business development with two private telcos.