James Paul 
If there was a time when the first iPhone was available in a 4 GB version (yes, yes), Apple smartphones (including the recent iPhone 16) now have a minimum storage of 128 GB. So yes, it seems enormous, even unattainable, and yet, after just a few months, it is not impossible to see the storage of your iPhone saturate. This is due to ever-increasing photos and videos, but also to certain applications which can eat up the precious memory of your smartphone.
How to view your iPhone’s storage?
If we tend to never really worry about it, the storage of our smartphones can become problematic, since the latter can prevent the installation of an application, slow down the performance of the smartphone, prevent the capture of a photo /video, prevent the installation of an update… Concerning the iOS 18.2 update, you must have 7 GB of free space for the installation of the latter, which may not be your case.
So of course, you can unload your iPhone’s memory using iCloud, but like many other users, you may not be in favor of opting for Apple’s paid online storage plan. Also, to view the remaining storage on your iPhone, you should go to the section SettingsThen Generaland finally iPhone Storage.
Here, iOS will display the status of the iPhone’s storage, also listing the different applications according to the space occupied. Practical ! The opportunity generally to visualize to what extent photos and videos take up a gargantuan space on our iPhones.
How to make space?
As a general rule, to recover a few precious GB on a smartphone, you should take the time to delete these photos and videos that you do not want to keep. To do this, you should go to your library and carefully delete the photos and videos in question.
These will be sent to the trash, and permanently (and automatically) deleted after 30 days. To save time (and therefore storage), you can choose to go to the section Deleted Recentlyand manually delete all stored photos and videos.
For information, each shot captured with an iPhone 15 Pro takes up between 2 and 3 MB of storage, when the format is set to High Efficiency and in 24 megapixel mode. By adjusting the settings, you can slightly reduce the space occupied by each shot, although of course to the detriment of a certain image quality.
Monitor (among other things) your WhatsApp application!
Beyond the Photos application, which should very well be at the top of the list of the most imposing applications for your iPhone’s storage, other applications should be monitored.
This is particularly the case for “social” applications, such as Signal, TikTok, Facebook and WhatsApp. Depending on your uses, these can store several dozen GB on your iPhone. This is the case of the WhatsApp application in particular, via which we generally exchange numerous photos and videos, which are stored in the application.
Also, to unload WhatsApp, you should go to the Settings of the application, then in Storage and Dataand finally in Manage Storage. Here, the application allows you to visualize the space occupied on your iPhone, detailing the weight of each conversation. To free up space, you should then go to the conversations of your choice, then delete the desired media.
This is particularly valid for WhatsApp, but it is also the case for other applications such as Instagram (which in our case occupies 4.1 GB), for X (2.08 GB), for TikTok (3.25 GB ), for Facebook (2.66 GB).
Remember that while Android makes it easy to clear an application’s cache, this operation is impossible on an iPhone. Also, to give back a “new look” to an application that is a little too invasive, it is advisable to uninstall it, then reinstall it.
