If you're an iPhone user, chances are the following may have happened to you probably one too many times: you're busy scrolling through Instagram [1] or downloading an app [2] when this dreaded "Storage Almost Full" prompt pops up — or the even worse, "Not Enough Storage." Maybe you're like me and you quickly hit one of the two: "Done" and "Not Now," and put off dealing with iCloud storage [3] yet another day. But what do you do when you finally want to face the iCloud storage dilemma head on?
Turns out manageing the cloud is much simpler than you may think. First, you can better manage your iCloud storage [4] by checking to see how much space you may have available to use. To do this, if you're using iOs 10.3 or later, go to Settings, tap on your name, choose iCloud, and select either iCloud Storage or Manage Storage. If you're using iOs 10.2 or earlier, all you have to do is go to Settings, tap iCloud, then tap Storage. When you set up iCloud, you're automatically given five GB of storage and are given the option to purchase more, too. Plans begin at 50 GB and cost $0.99 per month. If you choose a 200 GB or two TB plan, you can share your storage with family, which is a pretty good deal (unless someone downloads everything and takes up way too much space).
However, you can also manage your storage better by easily creating more room in your iCloud account. For instance, you can do this by going through your phone and deleting content you may not need any more [6] — this could be old texts, photos, apps, videos, and emails. It's also important to remember that image or file attachments that are found in text messages also take up room, so be sure to delete those if you have no use for them any more. People may also forget that apps automatically get backed up to iCloud once they're downloaded. To help minimize the amount of room apps and their memory take up, go to Settings and manually choose which apps you would like backed up to iCloud.
Another great tip for freeing up more iCloud storage space is by minimizing the sizing of photos you may have on your device. You can do this by going to Settings and turning on Optimize Storage. By doing this, your phone frees up space by replacing original photos and videos with more storage efficient, device-sized versions. Don't worry though, your full-sized photos and videos will still be backed up in iCloud and are available to download at any time.
Getting that notification may be intimidating and annoying (is it really almost full?), but it doesn't have to be. With a quick visit to Settings and a few taps of your iPhone screen, you'll be able to download more apps [8] and take more videos in Snapchat [9] in no time.