How to clear iCloud storage and free up space on your iPhone, iPad, and other Apple devices
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Dave Johnson
Sep 19, 2020, 04:06 IST
You can clear your iCloud storage on your iPhone, iPad and by going to the iCloud website on your Mac.SOPA Images/Getty Images
You can clear an iCloud account's storage in several ways to free up space and avoid having to pay for extra storage.
Apple gives you 5 GB of iCloud storage with the purchase of one of its devices, and that can fill up fast.
Most often, your iCloud storage goes towards backing up your photos, files, voice memos, apps, and text messages.
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Unless you pay for an iCloud subscription, Apple gives you 5GB of storage with any device's purchase. That's not a lot of space, and you can quickly find that you don't have enough room for your photos, iCloud Drive files, and other data from your phone or tablet.
You can upgrade your iCloud subscription, but it's cheaper to clear out space in your iCloud account. You can delete files, photos, app backups, voice memos, and more from your iCloud Drive directly on your Apple device or through the iCloud website.
Typically, these things and all their associated data get backed up to iCloud by default. This can be both a blessing and a curse, particularly if the things you want to be backed up take up a lot of storage space. But you can save a substantial amount of space by disabling automatic backups, especially when it comes to your largest apps.
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You can also delete text messages and any of the videos or images attached to them. While deleting individual texts won't save much space, you can remove entire conversations and the media associated with them, which can help significantly.
Here's how to clear your iCloud storage and free up more space.
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How to clear iCloud storage
Delete photos from iCloud storage
By default, iCloud backs up all your photos and videos to the cloud. Over time, that adds up to a lot of pictures. You can save space by deleting any images you no longer want. It's possible to do this from your iPhone, iPad, or the iCloud website. As long as Google Photos is enabled, any pictures you delete in one location are automatically deleted everywhere. Here's how to delete photos from iCloud.
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