Apple’s iCloud system is one of the biggest cloud storage solutions in the world, with nearly a billion users as of 2018. If you’re one of the millions of people out there with an Apple device, you probably use iCloud every day.
You probably struggle with your storage limits every day, too.
That iCloud storage space is great, but you’re restricted to 5GB if you don’t pay to increase storage. Even then, a power user can easily hit the higher storage limits. That can make organizing your items in the cloud a real chore.
Luckily, there are a few tips and tricks you can use to manage your iCloud storage better. Let’s take a look!
Deal With Your iMessage Backups
Apple’s iMessage service is super popular for a reason. It’s quick, sleek, easy-to-use, and effortless to restore your old conversations when you get a new iPhone.
Well, that last one can be a problem.
If you have iMessage set to sync to your iCloud storage, your backups can swell to huge proportions. Every message, meme, photo, and link you send over iMessage goes right into iCloud.
That’s why it can pay dividends to go to “Manage Storage” in settings and clear out old and irrelevant backups. Users can get back entire gigabytes of space this way!
Delete Those Duplicates!
Downloaded a file you already have? Saved 5 different copies of the same document? We’ve all done it, but those duplicates can add up to a lot of backup bloat.
It’s worth setting aside the time to check your iCloud storage and clear up the cruft. Doing something as simple as deleting non-final versions of Pages and Keynote documents can easily net you plenty of space.
Those big high-resolution photos your iPhone takes can end up duplicated, too. Trawling through your photo library and deleting doubles is another way to save iCloud storage space, but there are also tools to do it for you. If that piques your interest, feel free to read more.
Instead of iCloud Storage, Use PC or Mac Storage
Another option is using local backups for the stuff that takes up a lot of space. Both PCs and Macs can easily store the bigger files on your phone.
You could even store less-important stuff on your phone storage exclusively. That might be an issue when it’s time to upgrade, though!
Either way, by using a mix of local and iCloud backups you can make the latter go a lot further!
It’s All About Attention
However you manage your iCloud storage, the key is to keep on top of it before it spins out of control. Deleting duplicates, offloading less-important backups, and cleverly mixing local and cloud storage are all about paying attention before you get a ‘Storage Low’ warning, really.
After all, taking ten minutes every so often to look after your cloud data is way more preferable to losing all your cat photos when you switch phones.
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