How to empty iCloud with these simple steps

How to empty iCloud

If your iCloud storage is full, don't worry, it happens to many users and in today's article, we are going to see how to empty iCloud, and fix this problem in several different ways. Even if you just bought an iPhone, the free 5 GB that comes with your Apple ID isn't really enough for an extended period of time, especially if you want to store a lot of images, files, and backup copies of the iPhone.

Maybe a few years ago the 5 GB that it offers you Apple for free was enough, but now, it is nothing more than something symbolic, not very functional.

It is true that buying more iCloud storage space can be the solution, since we have several storage plans available, or use one of the many cloud storage options. But also you can free up a surprising amount of space just clearing the clutter you have in the account. In today's article, I will show you different ways on how to empty iCloud and free up space.

ICloud storage

iCloud storage can fill up quickly if you're not careful how you manage it, as free storage is very scarce. How to empty iCloud

Before starting the path of removing files from iCloud, it is a good idea find out what types of files are taking up the most space. From your device's settings app, go to iCloud and select Manage storage.

At the top of the screen, you'll see a bar graph of what types of files are taking up your available space in iCloud. For most users of Apple , backups, photos and messages can take up half of your storage space. Scroll down to find a detailed list of installed apps and the amount of iCloud storage each is using.

Now you have a good idea of ​​which changes to your iCloud storage would free up the most space.

Your device backups are often the culprits behind a full storage space from iCloud. And while many of them are necessary, it's quite possible that you had your old iPhone set to automatically upload backups to the cloud, and then never deleted those files.

Find out what content uses storage

Years later, they're still there taking up valuable storage space when there's almost no chance you'll ever need to access that backup in the future.

To get rid of these files, you must first open iCloud from the app Configuration from iOS or the application System preferences macOS. Then click or tap on Manage backups to see all the backups that are currently stored in your iCloud account. Delete the ones you no longer need and you will instantly free up storage space.

While you're there, it's a good idea to check which apps are backing up to your iCloud account. Some of these, like your Photos app, could be important for cloud copying. But you don't need to save the data of all the apps on your device. To turn off backups for an app, just tap the status bar to turn it from green to gray, you'll gain space now, and keep free space in the future.

2. Get rid of old messages

apple messages

Individual text messages and large group messages, it is true that they usually take up little space, at most a few kilobytes each. But if you have been a user of iPhone for many years, you could have more than a gigabyte of old messages stored in your iCloud account. The sum of all those messages could be even higher if you send a lot of emojis or photos, and who doesn't.

To save some space, head over to the Messages app on your device. From here, you can delete individual messages or entire conversations. Keep in mind that when If you delete messages on one device, they are deleted from all your Apple devices.

Alternatively, you can choose to only delete attachments, which tend to take up a disproportionate amount of storage space. In a conversation, tap the contact's name and then the information button. Select See all photos, and then select all the photos you want to delete.

Just these steps will free up a lot of iCloud storage.

3. Delete Email Attachments

Mail app with balloon to configure mail

As with the messages, email attachments can take up a lot of space, especially if your iCloud account stores emails for several years or even from several different email accounts.

Fortunately, you don't need to indiscriminately delete all your emails from storage. iCloud Mail includes an easy way to view emails with attachments sorted by size.

You should now open iCloud Mail and select View, then Sort by Attachments. Now, you can delete all emails that have attachments with just a few clicks. If you don't want to delete so many emails, you can choose a specific slice size like 15 MB and delete all emails with attachments larger than that chosen size.

4. Manage your photo library

Photos icon for macOS

It's very probable that your Photo Library is taking up most of the available space within your iCloud account. After all, the cameras on Apple devices have incredibly high resolutions, and more and more people are recording video clips in addition to photos.

In addition, with the quality that the boys from Cupertino are introducing in the iPhone cameras, it is relatively easy to end up with hundreds of gigabytes of multimedia files in the cloud if you are not careful with the management of your library.

Unfortunately, there is no automatic way to find bad photos in your iCloud library. It's up to you to search your albums and delete the photos you don't want, one by one. If you have videos stored in the cloud, it's a good idea to go through them and trim them down to only the clips you really want to keep for posterity.

Deleted photos

You'll notice that your available iCloud storage space doesn't change immediately as you delete photos. That's because when you trash them, instead of being permanently deleted, the photos and videos are sent to the album called "Recently Deleted". In this place, the deleted photos and videos, they will be 30 days, in which you will still be able to recover your files, before they are completely deleted. You can add the space to the cloud immediately by going to the Recently Deleted album and personally deleting all the files in that folder.

In the future, there are a few things you can do to prevent your photo and video storage from overflowing. For example, it's a good idea to remove photos as soon as you take them, selecting only the ones you really like, and want to save or share. If you usually need to take five photos, to get the perfect selfie, delete the four photos you don't need right away. Similarly, you can trim videos to just the parts you want to keep, and remove the rest of the video.

You can also move old albums offline if you don't need to access them. Moving the data to an external hard drive will free up iCloud storage space and may save us some money on our cloud storage subscription in the long run, because we would need less space to pay for.

5. Clean iCloud Drive

iCloud Drive

iCloud Drive is where the guys at Cupertino store copies of all our other file types, like documents, PDFs, and app files. Over time, your Drive storage can become cluttered just like your messages, mail and photo libraries.

Cleaning iCloud Drive is easiest from a computer, although it can also be done from an iPhone or iPad. On a Mac, just go to the iCloud Drive folder in Finder. You can then sort files by size, type, or date created, and delete anything you no longer need.

Final conclusions

With files from all parts of the Apple ecosystem leaking into iCloud, it's easy to see how our storage space can fill up quickly and dwindle to free space fast. Spending a few minutes clearing out your storage every once in a while can free up space, help you keep on top of clutter, and prevent you from having to pay for more storage. With these five tips, you can easily address the most common causes of a full iCloud account.

If you're still having space issues, then you should definitely look at other cloud storage alternatives, many of them free, or buy some of the larger storage plans that iCloud has, or even think about getting devices with more storage when you change your device.

If you know of any other tricks to free up iCloud storage space, let us know in the comments.


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