There are a million and one different resources for how to hack more storage into your iPhone. For me, it seems that every time I try one of these hacks, it works for a short amount of time, and then I'm back to square one. Hashtag, frustrating.
I decided I was going to try and ask an actual iPhone expert, so I went to the nearest Apple store. Firstly, if you've never been to an Apple store before, it's like walking into the ticket area of Disney World. People are dropping an insane amount of money, there are families everywhere with kids in Frozen backpacks with a leash attached, and everyone's either on some strange high of excitement or super pissed off.
After ten minutes I finally was able to army crawl to the "Genius Bar," which actually a great concept - a reserved area just for people with questions about Apple products. The person I chatted with (who was like, 16 years old, by the way) first told me to Google "iPhone storage hacks," and I'll be able to find all the storage tips I could dream of. Riding my momentum of frustration, I kindly asked for their personal favorite hacks, and they told me some new ones I hadn't tried yet. Ready to try out some of these tricks, I headed home - but not before stopping at the Mac counter to buy more makeup I don't need (PS, if you haven't tried the Nasty Gal/Mac lipstick line, you need to.)
These are the five tips I would recommend to easily get more storage on your iPhone, without resorting to buying more from Apple.
Music
If you're like me, then music is something you don't want to sacrifice. I have a premium Spotify account, but I didn't realize that I made a lot of my playlists "available offline." This takes up a ton of storage on your phone, so be aware!Photos
This is a no brainer - backup your photos! I started plugging my phone into my Macbook and syncing my photos to my iPhotos app then deleting them from my phone, and it saved me a ton of storage. If you don't have a Mac, you can still backup photos up to a computer.Close Out (Almost) Everything
Make sure your browser history and apps - that you aren't currently using - are all closed. I am still grandfathered into an unlimited data plan (praise!), so I use my Safari app all day every day. What I never did, though, was close out my browser(s). I did the same thing with all my apps, too. My 2048 app was still running, even though I hadn't played it in two weeks. #RookieMistakeDelete, Delete, Delete
When's the last time you really opened up your Groupon app? As far as I'm concerned, the only apps you should have on your phone right now are Dubsmash, Snapchat, Instagram, and Spotify. Go into your settings and view which apps are taking up most of your space so you can narrow down which ones to delete. That goes for texts and Tinder messages, too. Yup, all of those take up space.Watch Out For Autosave
Almost every single photo app (Instagram, for example), saves your filtered photo to your photo stream. Which means, you have almost the same photo in your stream twice. Get rid of it! Go to you app settings and make sure you aren't saving your filtered photos to your phone.Have any other iPhone hack tips? Share them in the comments below!