How to Check iPhone Storage and What Each Category Means

To check iPhone storage, open Settings, tap General, then tap iPhone Storage. The top of the screen shows how much space is used out of the total, with a coloured bar split by category. Underneath, iOS may offer storage recommendations, followed by a list of your apps with the space each one uses.

Apple's storage article defines each category in that bar. Three points make the figures easier to read. The total is smaller than the box says, a computer shows different numbers, and iCloud is counted somewhere else.

How to Check iPhone Storage in Settings

How do I see what is taking up storage on my iPhone?

What is taking up storage on your iPhone is shown in Settings > General > iPhone Storage. The coloured bar splits the used space by category. The app list sorts your apps by the space they use, so the first few rows show where most of it has gone.

1. Open Settings.
2. Tap General.
3. Tap iPhone Storage.
4. Read the line at the top, which gives the space used out of the total, and the bar under it.
5. Scroll the app list to find the apps using the most space.

When space is short, the same screen may list recommendations for saving it. Tap Show to see them all, read each description, then tap Enable on the ones you want.

Check Storage for a Single App

Tapping an app in the list opens its own storage page. Apple notes that cached and temporary data may not count as usage, so the figure can leave out some of what the app has stored.

The page offers two ways to get that space back. Offload App frees the space the app itself takes but keeps its documents and data. Delete App removes the app and its related data.

Find Your iPhone's Total Capacity

Why is my iPhone storage less than advertised?

Your iPhone storage is less than advertised because part of the stated capacity goes to formatting and to the operating system. Apple measures capacity in decimal units, where 1 GB is one billion bytes. Its note on storage capacity states that actual formatted capacity is less.

Apple's iPhone User Guide places the phone's capacity and its available storage space in Settings > General > About. Three numbers are easy to mix up:

Capacity tells you which storage size you have, which matters when working out how much iPhone storage you need for the next phone. The used figure is the one the coloured bar breaks into categories.

What Each iPhone Storage Category Means

The coloured bar groups everything on the phone into categories that Apple's storage article defines. Each one points to a different place where space can come back.

On the phone, iOS and System Data are the last two lines of the app list. Macworld's explainer notes that Other was renamed System Data in iOS 15, while Apple's storage article still uses the names System and Other.

When Apps is the largest category, the app list shows which apps carry it, and Applications in iPhone storage explains what the category holds. A large System Data line has causes of its own, set out in iPhone System Data explained.

Check iPhone Storage on a Mac or PC

A computer can show the same storage from outside the phone. Apple gives these steps:

1. Open Finder on a Mac or the Apple Devices app on a Windows PC. Use iTunes on a PC without the Apple Devices app, or on a Mac with macOS Mojave or earlier.
2. Connect the iPhone to the computer.
3. Select the iPhone in the Finder sidebar or in the Apple Devices app. In iTunes, select it in the upper-left corner.
4. Hover over the storage bar to see how much space each type of content uses.

The computer uses its own categories: Audio, Video, Photos, Apps, Books, Documents & Data, Other, and Synced content. Cached music, videos, and photos count as Other on a computer, and the phone removes those caches when it needs the space.

That is why Music or Video figures on a computer can differ from those on the phone. Apple's advice is to check on-device usage in Settings > General > iPhone Storage.

Check iCloud Storage Separately

Does iPhone storage include iCloud?

iPhone storage does not include iCloud. Device storage is the space on the phone itself. iCloud storage keeps photos, files, notes, and other data in the cloud, as Apple's comparison of the two explains.

To see iCloud storage, open Settings, tap your name, then tap iCloud. Tap Storage or Manage Storage for more detail. A full iPhone does not mean a full iCloud account, or the reverse, because iPhone storage and iCloud storage are separate allowances.

What to Do After You Check iPhone Storage

The largest category you can act on is where to start, because it holds the most space to recover. Each step to free up space on iPhone works on one of those categories. The recommendations on the iPhone Storage screen are Apple's own first suggestions.

When Photos is the largest category, the work is sorting the camera roll, which is where deleting photos on iPhone begins. Photo cleaner apps such as Swipe Quick show one photo at a time on the device: swipe left to delete, right to keep. Nothing is deleted without confirmation, and deleted photos go to Recently Deleted for 30 days.

For the next phone, the iPhone storage calculator estimates how many photos and how many hours of video fit in a chosen capacity.

Frequently asked questions

What does Storage Almost Full mean on iPhone?

Storage Almost Full on iPhone means the phone is close to its capacity. Apple's advice is to check the storage recommendations in Settings, or to remove content, for example videos and apps.

Can you remove synced content from an iPhone?

You cannot remove synced content from the iPhone itself. Apple's steps are to connect the phone to Finder, the Apple Devices app, or iTunes, deselect the content, and sync again.