iCloud storage full? What to delete and what to keep

When iCloud storage is full, your iPhone stops backing up, new photos stop uploading to iCloud Photos, and iCloud Mail can stop sending and receiving. The fix starts in Settings › [your name] › iCloud, where a bar shows what's using your plan. For most people that's photos and videos first, then device backups.

See what's filling your iCloud storage

Open Settings › [your name] › iCloud. The bar at the top splits your plan into Photos, Backups, Messages, Mail, iCloud Drive and the rest. Tap Manage Account Storage for the full list, largest first.

The free 5 GB fills fast, since one iPhone backup and a year of photos can pass it on their own. If you share an iCloud+ plan through Family Sharing, everyone's photos count toward the same total, so the biggest user may not be you.

1. 1

   Step 1

   Delete backups of old devices

   Settings›[your name]›iCloud›Manage Account Storage›Backups

   Backups of phones and iPads you no longer use stay until you delete them. Tap the old device and use the delete option at the bottom. For your current iPhone, you can switch off backup for large apps listed there instead.

2. 2

   Step 2

   Trim Messages

   Settings›General›iPhone Storage›Messages

   With Messages in iCloud on, every photo and video sent over iMessage counts toward your plan. Tap Review Large Attachments and delete the big ones. The change syncs to iCloud.

3. 3

   Step 3

   Clear photos you don't need

   Start with the Duplicates album under Utilities in Photos, then long videos and old screenshots. With iCloud Photos on, deleting on the iPhone removes the photo from iCloud too.

4. 4

   Step 4

   Empty Recently Deleted

   Photos›Utilities›Recently Deleted

   Deleted photos stay here for 30 days and still count against your plan. Tap Select, then Delete All.

5. 5

   Step 5

   Check iCloud Drive and Mail

   Large files in iCloud Drive show up in the Files app. In iCloud Mail, emptying Trash and deleting old messages with big attachments gives that space back.

When a bigger iCloud plan is the right answer

If you shoot a lot of video, the next iCloud+ tier is often the right answer, and I say that as someone who makes a cleanup app. A cleanup gets you a few gigabytes. A year of 4K video of your kids can be tens of gigabytes you'll want to keep anyway. iCloud+ is billed monthly through your Apple Account, and you can move up or down a tier in Settings whenever you like.

Cleaning makes sense when the library is full of things you'd never pay to store: 40 frames of the same plate from lunch, screenshots of 2FA codes, a Zelle confirmation from two years ago, the boarding pass from a trip you already took.

Clearing iCloud Photos with Sappari

Sappari reads the small previews already on your iPhone and never downloads your originals, so it works with Optimize iPhone Storage turned on. The sizes it shows include photos stored only in iCloud. Deletions sync to all your devices, and Sappari shows how much iCloud space comes back.

It clears near-identical frames next to the photos you hearted, duplicates, old screenshots and blurry shots, and it can compress large videos to HEVC at 1080p or 720p while keeping the date, place, favorite and albums. Sappari doesn't touch backups, Messages, Mail or iCloud Drive. Use the steps above for those.

See what your photos weigh in iCloud

Sappari's free scan shows real sizes, including photos kept only in iCloud. Nothing is uploaded, and nothing is deleted until you confirm.

Coming soon to the App Store