How to free up iCloud storage space is one of the most pressing questions if you are using the free 5GB version. In our article we will tell you how to clear cloud storage on your iPhone or computer. Another way to forget about restrictions is to increase your storage in iCloud ☁.

Why is iPhone's iCloud storage full?

You may not know, but all iPhone settings, as well as data, are stored in iCloud as backup copy and take up a larger amount of free 5 GB cloud storage.

Why do you need a backup copy - if you suddenly lose your iPhone or buy a new one, then thanks to the backup copy, you can restore all the data you had without losing information (contacts, photos, notes and applications that you had installed will also be restored). , we wrote detailed instructions on our blog.

How to see how much free space is left in iCloud on iPhone

To see what is filled with iCloud on your iPhone, you need to follow these steps:

1. Immediately at the top in the “Storage” section, you will see a visual chart with the amount filled.

Sign in to the "Apple ID" section	Log in to iCloud

It’s convenient that you can visually assess what data and how much space it takes up in the storage.

What's in the iPhone's iCloud storage?

So you understand that your iCloud is full, what to do in this case, read in the next chapter of our publication.

iCloud storage is full, what should I do?

First of all, you need to look at what your iCloud cloud storage is filled with? Typically this is:

• backup (backup of your data);
• photographs and videos;
• documentation;
• mail.

1. Increase iCloud volume (connect to paid plans).
2. Delete files from iCloud that you think you don't need.

How to increase iCloud capacity on iPhone

One of the options when your storage is full is to increase the gigabyte volume:

• 50 GB;
• 200 GB;
• 2 TB.

If we talk about the cost, then for example 50 GB will cost you $0.99, this is a very affordable cost, since you spend many times more on calls and the Internet, don’t you agree?

Go to “Storage Management”	Enter "Change Storage Plan"
how to increase icloud storage	iCloud storage plans

To be able to connect paid tariff iCloud you must have added a payment card from which the “tariff amount” will be charged every month.

How to free up iCloud space on iPhone

If you do not want to increase your cloud space, but want to be content with the free 5 GB. You need to decide what data and files you want and can delete from the cloud drive.

Options for what you can delete in iCloud to free up space:

1. A backup copy of all your data on iPhone - this backup can be stored:
   • in iCloud;
   • in iTunes on PC or Mac. Alternatively, you can store a backup in iTunes on your computer and free up space in cloud storage .
2. iCloud Media Library (photos and videos) - in second place in terms of space occupied free version Cloud storage is usually occupied by photo and video content. If you backup to an external HDD or use Google Photos with unlimited volume (*not high resolution), then the media library can also be deleted from the Apple cloud.
3. Documents - you should carefully study this data so as not to delete anything important, but it is better to leave it as is (usually they take up a minimum of space)
4. Mail - you can delete mail data only if there are no important letters there. If your Mailbox regularly filled with advertising mailings (spam) from different companies then it is even better to remove them since they are of no value.

After analyzing what can be cleared in iCloud storage on an iPhone, proceed directly to deleting data in iCloud; to do this, follow the instructions:

1. Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
2. Then enter the "Apple ID" section (with your first and last name).
3. Next, go to “iCloud”
4. Then go to "Manage Storage"
5. Select the section you want to clear: “Backups”, “Media Library”, “Documents” or others.

Step 1	Step 2	Step 3	Step 4

If you decide to delete not only the “Backup” but also all the photos in iCloud, you must also make settings so that in the future your photos will not be uploaded to the iCloud library.

iPhone - powerful smartphone with a huge range of possibilities - here you have both a work office and an entertainment center in one. With the help of an i-gadget, the user solves a lot of different problems and, of course, it accumulates a bunch of important, interesting, useful information. Of course, losing it overnight by losing it, breaking your phone, or becoming a victim of theft is very sad.

It is noteworthy that the majority of those who have at least once unexpectedly lost their faithful electronic assistant regret not the loss of a materially valuable object and the need to spend money on a new gadget (although Apple smartphones are by no means cheap), but the loss of important data. This is why it is so necessary to create a backup copy of all information stored on the device.

Fortunately, modern technologies allow you to perform backups in literally two taps. The so-called cloud service – iCloud – comes to the aid of Apple users. What kind of “beast” this is and how to use it, we’ll talk in this article.

Cloud storage (or as modern users romantically call it “the cloud”) is a collection of online servers distributed on a network on which the user can store a backup copy of important data.

Clouds are created by various companies, that is, in fact, the user, by sending information to an online storage, transfers his data to third parties, but, of course, on the basis of an agreement that it will be protected and inviolable.

What if data is stolen from the cloud?

Should you be afraid for your data if it is stored by a third party? In general, no more than for jewelry placed in a safe deposit box at a bank. Of course, information leakage can happen, but banks have been robbed for hundreds of years, but this does not mean that money should be kept in your apartment - it is still safer in a special institution.

iCloud is the official cloud storage for Apple technology users

The “range” of online storage today is large, but owners of i-smartphones do not need to waste time to choose the most reliable and convenient one, because it is already in every Apple device, its name is iCloud, using this service, you can have maximum peace of mind for your data.

What information does the cloud store?

In iCloud you can back up almost any type of data stored on your device, here is a complete list of them:

• Music (including ringtones, TV shows and other audio materials)
• Video
• Books
• Applications and their data
• Basic smartphone settings, including desktop settings
• Messages (sent both via iMessages and in the usual way)

However, you can quite limit this range; more details on how to do this in the section “How to use iCloud?”.

More than just saving data...

Of course, the main option of iCloud on the iPhone and other i-devices is to save information important to the user. However, if you have several Apple gadgets, you will certainly appreciate the ability to synchronize information between them. This option gives you access to some really cool features. It’s clear that all content (music, photos, etc.) will be present on all synchronized devices. But look what we have since iCloud can remember application data...

For example, your iPhone and iPad are synchronized via iCloud, which means that you can start playing some game on your smartphone, and then, well, if your smartphone is low, for example, continue on your iPad, and exactly where you left off .

And all this is free?

Of course, when you learn about such cool opportunities, the thought immediately appears that all this is not free. Partly, the idea is correct. Apple generously provides the user with 5GB of free space, and in general, this is enough to store truly valuable data. But if you need more space, no one is stopping you from buying it.

iCloud tariffs

• 50 GB – 59 rubles per month
• 200 GB — 149 rubles per month
• 1 TB — 599 rubles per month

iTunes Match is another cool iCloud feature you have to pay for

iTunes Match is a service created for music lovers, allowing you to save on buying music. The service automatically analyzes the library of all music stored on the PC you are working on when you connect your i-gadget to iTunes, and looks for a copy in the store iTunes Store and downloads it (for free!) to all Apple devices synchronized via iCloud, in good quality with album cover and detailed information about the composition and artist.

Thus, up to 25,000 tracks can be processed, and you will not pay anything for them, you will only need to pay for a subscription to the service - $25 per year. It’s very convenient - you don’t need to connect your devices to your PC again to download music, and for such convenience it’s relatively inexpensive.

How to use iCloud?

Well, now, about the most important thing - how to set up this wonderful service. Very simple! Follow the short instructions:

1 Open “Settings”, find the iCloud item - if you have not used the service before, you will need to log in. For authorization, use Apple ID - account, which you created during the initial setup of the i-gadget. 2 After authorization, a window for working with the cloud will appear in front of you - it is a list of types of information that you can store. Opposite each item is a slider. You only need to select the types of data that you want to store and activate the corresponding slider. 3 If you have a lot of space in iCloud, you can make all the sliders active, otherwise you will have to choose the most valuable one.

Several items in the iCloud menu deserve special attention, including iCloud Drive, Backup, Keychain and Find my Phone. Let's look at why to activate them.

iCloud Drive

Tap on iCloud Drive and you will find yourself in a new menu, which will list applications for which you can set data storage in the cloud, each program has its own slider. Activate the ones you need and turn off the ones you don't need.

Backup copy

By tapping on the “Backup” line, you will again find yourself in a new menu. If you have never created a backup of information before, you need to first click on the “Create a backup copy” link, and then activate the slider next to the “iCloud backup” option, and then the backup will be performed whenever new information appears on your device .

Bunch of keys

This item is responsible for storing Safari passwords, activate it and you won’t have to constantly enter account settings for this or that personal account when working with the Apple browser.

Find my Phone

And finally, Find my Phone is a very cool option. If your phone is stolen and Find my Phone is turned on, you can really annoy the attacker. How? More on this in the next section.

How to recover data from iCloud?

Recovering data from iCloud on a new device is very simple. At initial setting up iPhone(or any other i-gadget), the setup assistant will ask you whether you want to get a “clean” new device or whether you need to transfer all the information from the previous one to it. To restore, of course, you need to choose the second option. Of course, for a successful transfer you will need to indicate the Apple ID of your old device.

If your smartphone is lost, you don’t have a new one yet, and you need to restore the data urgently, well, for example, to look up an important phone number, take any PC and go to the iCloud.com website (in general, with mobile device you can access this site, but it’s more convenient from a computer), enter your Apple ID information for authorization, and you will have access to all the information that was included in your backup.

This same site allows you, if you are sure that the smartphone has been stolen, as we said above, to “annoy” the thief. If you have enabled it previously on your device Find option my Phone, then through iCloud.com you will have the opportunity to activate “Lost Mode”. After turning it on, the attacker will no longer be able to do anything with the gadget - it will be blocked, and the password will be your Apple ID data.

Let's summarize

So now you know what cloud is iCloud service on your iPhone and you can appreciate the full power of its capabilities. And, as you may have noticed, you only need to create a backup once, then everything will be done for you. So don’t be lazy and make a backup right now if you haven’t already. Can you imagine how annoying it will be if you are lazy today, forget tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow you lose your device?

When a message appears that a backup cannot be created because there is not enough space in iCloud, the question immediately arises of how to clear iCloud storage. We will look at several ways to do this.

Method number 1. Removing data from apps from the cloud

This problem arises for the simple reason that you are allocated only 5 GB on iCloud. At first, this is quite enough to store all contacts, backups and other data there. But over time, all this accumulates and 5 GB becomes too little. This, by the way, is another unpleasant surprise from Apple.

You can free up some space by deleting backups. If you have photos, you can use any other cloud storage if you are afraid of losing them. Therefore, from time to time it is necessary to clear Aylaud from backups.

• Go to the settings on your device, open the “General” section.
• There, find the item “Storage and iCloud”, click on it. Scroll open window down to the "Storage" section. There will be a “Manage” button, which you also need to click. The “Photo” section and a list of devices from which data is stored from iCloud will appear. If you want to delete copies of photos, select the first section, and if there are other backup copies, click on the device. We will consider the second option in detail, since with the first everything is extremely simple - click on the photo and the delete button.

Clue: If for some reason you are unable to enter the iCloud control menu in the manner described above, you can also open “iCloud” in the settings and go to “Storage”. You will be taken to the same menu.

• On the next page you can see which applications take up how much space in the cloud storage. Set the switch to the "On" position. next to those programs whose backup copies you want to delete.
• Scroll down the window and click on “Delete Copy.” Another window will appear asking if you really want to delete the copies. Click "Turn off and delete".

This instruction is the same for both iPhone and iPad. Unless the interface will be slightly different, the actions are completely identical.

After the above steps, the cloud storage will be slightly freed up. To delete everything from the cloud, you must first select “Photos,” delete all copies of photos, and then delete data from all programs.

Method number 2. Creating a new backup

If you create a new backup, the old one along with all its data will be deleted.

This is done as follows:

• In settings, find the item “iCloud” and “Backup” (it’s at the very bottom).
• There, click on the “Create a backup” button. Wait for the creation process to complete.

Important! In some cases, you also need to enable the Backup switch. This is the same page shown in Figure 3. Then the button to create a copy will become available. This is a small glitch operating system iOS.

Now, as you understand, the old copy will be deleted and a new one will be created. At the same time, data from programs, contacts and other important information will be preserved in full.

Only the photos will be lost. But in most cases, it is because of them that cloud storage becomes very cluttered.

In some cases, it is better to connect 50 GB instead of 5 GB on the cloud. Yes, it costs money, but then you can forget about the clutter for several years. By that time, you will probably want to buy something newer and more interesting.

This pleasure costs only 1 dollar per month (0.99 USD to be exact), which is equal to approximately 59 rubles or 26 hryvnia. For most people who can afford an Apple gadget, this is quite a bit.

To purchase additional space, in the settings you need to go to “iCloud”, then to “Storage” and click on “Buy more space”. 200 GB costs 3 bucks there, and 1 TB costs 10 units of American currency.

So if running out of space is an issue, clear out everything you don't need and consider expanding your cloud.

Hi all! I probably should have started this blog with this article. Well, or it absolutely should have appeared much earlier. Why? Because iCloud, along with Apple ID, are the basic terms that any user needs to learn and understand Apple technology. Without these two “things” you just can’t go anywhere!

And if I already have you with the identifier in the IOS system, then with the “clouds” (“cloud” is also sometimes called iCloud) there was some omission, which today I undertake to correct. Let's start with the most important thing - find out what kind of service this is, what useful functionality it has and how to use all this stuff for its intended purpose.

Let's get started! :)

iCloud on iPhone - why do we need it and what kind of program is it?

Although it’s more likely not even a program, but one great service, which includes several fairly important functions, without which the user experience Apple products wouldn't be so positive. Here are the main ones:

1. Creating backups. All information stored on the device is always saved and access to it is open exclusively to you. It's incredibly convenient! You can read about how to use iCloud backups and what restrictions exist.
2. The ability to share photos - photo stream. Imagine - you took a cool photo on your iPhone and it was immediately copied to your iPad. Thanks to photo streaming, there is no need to send photos; they will automatically be distributed to all your Apple gadgets.
3. Find iPhone (iPad tablet, player iPod Touch). It will help if you forgot or lost your device. It will block, show the coordinates on the map, erase all data if necessary, and send a message to the attacker. Mega-useful thing!

All these points together answer the question - what is iCloud, and why is it needed? I tried to explain in the description of these functions. We smoothly move on to another, no less important issue.

Here, in fact, the answer is simple and unambiguous - all the information that you send to iCloud is concentrated on Apple servers. Geographically speaking, the main data center is located in North Carolina.

For those readers who at this moment do not yet fully understand what we are talking about, I will tell you a little more in detail... Imagine that there is a huge hard drive and it is located somewhere far from you. And with buying an iPhone or iPad, you are allocated a small space in this storage. Which is used for all iCloud services.

What’s important is that all information is stored securely encrypted, and only you are allowed to access it. To do this, it is important not to tell anyone your password, and also to carefully store your passwords. Email to which it is registered.

It is necessary to know the answer to this question not so much for the sake of curiosity (it’s interesting!), but for the purpose of freeing up space in the cloud storage. After all, only 5 gigabytes are given for free and filling them with all sorts of unnecessary data is a big waste.

So, what exactly can be saved in iCloud:

• Backup copy. One or more, depending on the number of iPhones or iPads under your account.
• Letters, drafts, attachments to @icloud.com email messages. Do you want to envy yourself such a box? everything is planned down to the smallest detail.
• Contacts, calendars, reminders, notes, SMS messages.
• Photos and videos.
• Documents and data (some programs and applications can store their information in “clouds”. For what? For example: they started editing a document on one device and continued on another).
• Music purchased or downloaded from iTunes store. Stored, but not taken into account when calculating space.

In general, almost all data from your device can be stored in iCloud!

I hope that after this article you clearly and clearly understand what iCloud does on your iPhone and how to use it for its intended purpose. If suddenly this does not happen, welcome to the comments! Let's discuss all the unclear points!

P.S. Have you learned anything new about the cloud service? Click on the buttons social networks! Do you know more than what is written in the article? Also like it and tell everyone!

P.S.S. I repeat that all questions can and even should be asked in the comments - I will definitely try to help and suggest the right solution!

Recently I was visiting friends and I, as an “Apple lover” (who said that?), was once again asked to help with a problematic iPhone. The message “ This iPhone cannot be backed up because there is not enough free space in iCloud“, which was more annoying than causing any inconvenience.

This problem, if you can call it that, is faced by many iPhone owners. But not many people know what to do about it, and why suddenly all the space in the iCloud storage was filled. So today I'll tell you how to free up space on iCloud…

As probably each of you knows, when registering an Apple ID, Apple allocates 5GB of free space on its servers. These 5GB are intended for storing personal information (contacts, notes, etc.) and backup copies.

At first it may seem like 5GB is a lot, but in reality it’s “too little.” The statistics are such that more than half of users do not pay enough attention to setting up their iOS devices.

Therefore, quite often many of them are faced with a situation where the iCloud storage is full and iPhone screen The message mentioned above starts appearing.

To give you an idea of ​​what you're dealing with, below I'll tell you why this message appears and what needs to be configured so that the storage is used optimally and does not become full.

• How to copy photos from iPhone to computer –
• How to retrieve data from a locked iPhone? –
• What do you have to do before selling iPhone or iPad -
• How to restore iPhone to factory settings –

Where did the free space go?

So! Synchronization! You know the meaning of the term " iCloud synchronization"? In short, this means that the information you select will also be stored in Apple's cloud storage.

In the future, this information can be synchronized with other devices you use. Now look at the screenshot of iCloud settings below, and tell me which of the list will take up the most space?

Right! Of course photos you take with your iPhone, as well as backups, which also automatically go to the cloud.

Now, everyone who has activated photo stream synchronization in iCloud, honestly answer the question below, indicating your answer in the comments to the article.

How to get to photos that are synced to the iCloud cloud?

Look at the statistics and think again - do you really need it so that all the photos are copied somewhere else? Personally, I have this feature disabled. I regularly manually copy photos that are important to me onto my computer (link to instructions below).

Go ahead. Did you know that in iOS settings you can configure iCloud backup? What does this mean and how does it work? Every time your iPhone is connected to charger and is within Wi-Fi range, it automatically backs up to cloud storage. This is done regularly, and you usually don’t even know about it.

Control backup in iCloud of any of your devices is done like this: go to Settings – [Your Name], then scroll down the page and select the required device. On the page " Device Information"there is a switch" iCloud backup“.

What information is stored in the backup copy? I wrote about this in a separate article (here you go). But the most important thing is that the same photos may also be included in the backup.

It turns out that if the iPhone is not configured correctly, the entire photo stream is copied to iCloud twice. The first time in its original form, the second time as part of a backup copy.

This is the most common reason for iCloud storage to be full. If you really need photos to be available in the cloud, set it up in one place - either a photo stream or a backup (I would choose the former).

How to free up space on iCloud

As we just discovered, the main problem with iCloud storage overflowing is photos that get stacked... and possibly twice. To see what takes up the most space in YOUR iCloud storage, go to Settings – [Your Name] – iCloud – Storage Management.

And at this point everything should become clear to you. Typically, the first two sections (iCloud Photo Library and BACKUPS) eat up all the space. Our task is to remove duplicate photos and thus free up space in iCloud.

It’s not so easy to deal with the Media Library, because... you need to manually clean up photos from your devices and wait until the changes are applied to the photos synchronized to the cloud. So I suggest exclude photos from created backups. To do this we do this:

STEP 1 - Click on the item Backups, then by your device name.

STEP 2 - In the section SELECTING DATA TO CREATE A COPY disable the item " Media library"(as well as data from all those programs that, in your opinion, are not required to be reserved).

STEP 3 - Scroll to the bottom of the page and click on “ Delete copy».

Yes, we need to delete the backup that has taken up all the available space in iCloud storage. Don't worry, we will manually create a new copy that will no longer include the photo stream. To do this we do this:

STEP 1 - Go to Settings – [Your Name] – iCloud – iCloud Backup

STEP 2 - Click “ Create a backup“... we wait until the creation process is completed.

As you already understood, we deleted the old backup and then created a new one. The new backup does not contain photos of the photo stream, which means it takes up significantly less space in the cloud.

It may also happen that your Media Library has grown to indecent sizes (more than 5GB). In this case, you need to either increase your iCloud storage or transfer photos from your iPhone to your computer and then delete them from your iPhone.

Some documents took up all the iCloud free space

Based on complaints in the comments from many users, I realized that the problem of full iCloud storage lies not only in photos and backups.

There is another source of endless kilobytes that are trying to fill your cloud storage. This source is called “ Documentation“, but this doesn’t make me think about which direction to dig in order to clean up iCloud.

After rummaging around in iCloud Settings, I found one interesting page. Below is a short plan of action:

STEP 1 - Go to Settings – Apple ID – iCloud – iCloud(yes, this is not a typo, but you need to click on the storage bar).

STEP 2 - Click “ Control” and we get to the page for managing your storage.

STEP 3 - See the section “ Documents and Data“? Here is the data that has ever been “stored” by applications in iCloud. Let's clean up a little bit here.

The documents that take up the most space are at the very top of the list. I hope that you yourself will determine what has eaten up all your iCloud storage space.

STEP 4 - Click on “ gluttonous“, and in the window that opens, click the button Change(upper right corner). You can delete one item at a time, or scroll down and delete everything.

To prevent applications from dumping their “junk” into cloud storage, disable iCloud Drive.

Disable iCloud Drive

There is another rather new function for us iCloud Drive, which quietly appeared in the next iOS update. So here it is iCloud Drive allows you to store and synchronize application data via the cloud... almost everything that is installed on your iPhone.

Thus, it turns out that all your correspondence in Viber or WhatsApp with attachments, videos and porn pictures goes straight to the virtual storage. Again, the question is – do you need this? Let's turn it off!

On your iOS device let's go to Settings – Apple ID – iCloud, scroll down the page and disable either iCloud Drive completely, or we select which applications should and which should not store their data in the cloud.

Try it - it should help. Well, if it helped, give it a like (press one of the multi-colored buttons).

How to Increase iCloud Storage

If you're one of those photographers who takes their photos exclusively on the iPhone 7 Plus and also stores all those photos in iCloud, you definitely need to increase your cloud storage capacity. This is very easy to do, and this pleasure is quite inexpensive. Prices start at $0.99 for 50GB.

You can expand your storage here: Settings – [Your Name] – iCloud – Manage Storage – Change storage plan.

How to View Photos on iCloud

I’m sure that at the beginning of the article many hesitated when I asked about photos in iCloud. If you also don't know what we're talking about, here's a little life hack that might be very useful in the future.

In this article we are talking about iCloud cloud storage. You can control it from both your iPhone and your computer. If you didn’t know, there is a website on the Internet with the same address - this is the place where you can access information, as well as view photos that were previously synchronized from your devices.

Well, that's all. In this short guide, we'll tweak your iPhone a little more and free up some space in iCloud. If the article was useful, don’t be a bastard - like it (social media buttons below).

Subscribe to our Telegram, Twitter, VK.

note