This Genius iPhone Hack Could Help You Instantly Free Up Storage

Just three little words can ruin your whole day: “iPhone Storage Full.”

This message always seems to pop up at the most inopportune times, like during a concert or your child’s soccer match. The panic of trying to snap a photo and realizing there isn’t enough space to handle it is stressful, prompting you to delete images or screenshots to free up storage quickly. (And we know every second counts when the band is playing your favorite song or your star athlete is on the field!)

“I think we’ve all at some point had a problem of lack of space on our phone and multiple similar photos, videos, or accidental screenshots we can never get our hands on to delete,” Alexey Chyrva, chief product officer at Kitcast, a digital software company, told HuffPost.

It’s not easy finding those unwanted items when you’re in a desperate rush, so chances are, you’ll miss the moment you’re in or you’ll accidentally delete something you regret.

Save time by using this handy, storage-saving hack for iPhones with iOS 16 and later:

Let your iPhone delete duplicate photos.

One thing you don’t need to take up storage on your phone? Duplicate photos and videos. But instead of searching manually for every replicate in your Photos app, your iPhone does the work for you in finding photos and videos that are identical (or nearly so) and placing them in the Duplicates folder under Photos > Utilities. Thank you, technology!

Just open the folder and delete or merge items to clear up space.

John Yensen, president at the IT services company Revotech Networks Ltd., told HuffPost that this is one of “the simplest ways to clear redundant files” on your iPhone.

“Most people don’t realize just how much space duplicate photos and videos take up,” he said. “Especially with burst photos or shared images from messaging apps.

You should consider a few things before you start deleting or merging items. “It’s important you exercise caution when using this feature,” Yensen said, explaining that files in the Duplicates folder might actually have a slight difference instead of being exactly the same.

Chyrva advised iPhone users to make sure “you don’t delete something that seems like the same picture but actually is something completely different and needed for you.”

If your phone is synced to other devices via iCloud (like your Mac or iPad), deleting a picture from one may delete it from all other iCloud-synched devices. So don’t delete or merge something unless you are absolutely sure you don’t need it.

“Basically speaking, double-checking is essential if you don’t want to lose the files you need,” Chyrva added.

Here’s precisely how to clean out your duplicate images and videos:

1. Open the Photos app and scroll all the way down to the “Utilities” section.
2. Select “Duplicates” and let your iPhone load (you should see the number of items under “Duplicates” at the top of the screen change as it loads more duplicate media).
3. The duplicate photos and videos will be arranged by date, with the newest first. Review each one individually, then select “Merge” to combine them into one file.
4. Your iPhone will alert you that even though the photos are “exact copies,” they may contain “different metadata.” Once you confirm, your phone will automatically combine relevant data and move the rest to the “Recently Deleted” folder.
5. You can also press “Select” at the top right of the screen and select photos and videos from each section to merge. This is especially helpful if you have three or more duplicate files but only want to merge two. Once the items are selected, a blue checkmark will appear, and you can click “Merge” at the bottom of the screen.
6. To merge the entire list without going through each section individually, press “Select” on the top right, then “Select All” on the top left. From there, click “Merge” at the bottom of the screen.
7. You can also delete items instead of merging them. Press “Select,” then choose the photos and/or videos from the list you would rather delete than merge. Once the checkmark appears on the selected item, you can click the trash can icon on the bottom right of the screen to remove it.

When you have time, try these tips for clearing up iPhone storage.

Our experts recommend backing up your photos to an archive or external storage drive before deleting them from your phone to ensure you don’t lose any important items.

Also, take advantage of cloud storage. You can “store high-resolution photos and videos in iCloud, leaving the smaller, device-optimized versions on your phone,” Yensen said. This means you can still see all your pictures at a glance, but your phone will have more space since the high-resolution versions are stored on the cloud instead of your device. (It’s helpful if you lose or break your phone, too!)

Once you’ve deleted photos, Chyrva suggested immediately clearing your “Recently Deleted” folder. This is because photos and videos will stay “in your phone for an additional 30 days before it automatically wipes out.”

Every megabyte helps when trying to take more photos and videos, and this simple trick to free up unnecessary data is a game-changer. You don’t even have to wait until your phone is out of storage to try it. Make it a habit to go through the steps above periodically so you will never run out of phone storage space again.