If you’ve reached the point where every time you try to take a photo, post to Instagram, or even just send a text message, your iPhone says, “Storage Almost Full,” then it’s time for a serious intervention. One of the main offenders filling up your iPhone’s precious storage space is likely something called “System Data.” So how can you manage your iPhone’s system data?
System data includes things like app cashes or temporary files, message histories, browser caches, and more. In order to clear system data, you have to go into individual app settings where you can clear out their caches and any other extra data that’s been saved.
While system data is often important for running behind-the-scenes tasks on your phone, it sometimes takes up way too much space. If an iPhone’s system data is taking up more than 15 GB of storage, it’s probably time to delete it and start fresh. Let’s look in detail at different methods to clear out this unruly data and get your iPhone running smoothly once again.
What Is the Purpose of System Data in Your iPhone Storage?
System data is a broad category that basically includes all the data required to run the various system apps on your iPhone. This includes app configurations, app caches, message histories, preferences, saved states, fonts, Siri voices, and other system-level data.
A lot of this data is transient, meaning it doesn’t need to be stored permanently. For example, the system may only need to keep track of your current location while you’re using Maps.
Once you’re done with Maps, that data can be discarded. Other data is more persistent.
For example, the system may need to keep track of your app usage patterns to provide better performance and battery life. Still, this data is generally much less important than your actual app files, and it shouldn’t take up more than 10-15 GBs of space.
However, there are times when system data can get bloated and take up too much space. This usually happens when the cache folders get too big.
The cache is the temporary data that can be quickly accessed by the app (like recent images, videos, or web page data). Usually, the cache is automatically deleted when no longer needed.
The problem is, sometimes, this data doesn’t get cleared out — and it starts to pile up. The same thing can happen with your browser history and cookies.
For example, if you have Safari set to never delete your history, then the history data will quickly proliferate. So you’ll need to clear this data manually every now and then to free up some space.
How to View System Data on Your iPhone
iPhone has a built-in Storage Management feature that allows users to check the space occupied by different types of files. It breaks down the data into five categories: Photos, media, Apps, iOS, and system data.
To view your system data usage:
- Go to the ‘Settings’ app.
- Tap on ‘General.’
- Select ‘iPhone Storage.’
- Wait a few seconds while iPhone analyzes your storage.
- You’ll see a line graph displaying the space taken up by different categories of files. Below the graph, you’ll see a list of apps and the amount of space they take up.
- Scroll past all the apps, and you’ll see your system data usage at the bottom.
- You can open the ‘System Data‘ section, but iPhone doesn’t specify which files on your phone are included in this category. Unfortunately, you can’t change or delete these files from here.
Can You Clear System Data?
You can’t completely clear your system data; it’s an essential part of your iPhone’s storage. But you can clear up some space by deleting temporary files like app caches and history. However, it’s not as straightforward as deleting regular app files.
As we mentioned, the storage app doesn’t allow you to access or edit any of your system data.
So, if you want to clear it, you’ll need to go to individual apps and delete the relevant data from there. This can be a bit of a hassle, so be patient while we walk you through the process.
Clearing App Cache
First, let’s take a step back and understand how the cache works. Whenever you use an app, it stores some data in the form of cache so it can load faster the next time you open it. This is why apps often take a little longer to open the first time but are quicker after that.
So, on the one hand, it’s essential for apps to function smoothly. But on the other hand, if the cache gets too big, it can take up a lot of space. This usually happens in apps that run lots of media like photos, videos, or music.
The Facebook app, for example, can quickly rack up a few gigabytes of cache data. For this reason, you have to check each app individually and delete its cache.
But the best way to deal with this will be on a case-by-case basis. Some apps may have lots of cache, so start from those.
Here’s how to clear an app’s cache:
- Go to the ‘Settings’ app.
- Tap on ‘General.’
- Select ‘iPhone Storage.’
- You should have a list of apps and the space they’re taking up. The apps are arranged in order of how much space they’re using. So start from the top.
- Tap on an app to get more detailed information about its usage. You should see a section labeled ‘Storage.‘ This will tell you how much space the app is using for its various files, including cache.
- Tap on the ‘Delete Cache’ button at the bottom of the screen.
And that’s it! The app’s cache will be cleared, and you’ll have some extra storage space.
Remember that the next time you open the app, it may re-download some of the data for necessary operation.
Clearing Your Browsing History
The second most common type of removable system data is your browsing history. Every time you open a web page on your iPhone, it’s cached, so that next time you load that page, it will load faster.
Plus, your iPhone stores a record of every site you visit so it can auto-fill web addresses and search terms. Again, it’s shouldn’t be too much if it’s regularly cleared, but it can start to take up space if you don’t pay attention.
Here’s how to clear your browsing history in Safari:
- Open the ‘Setting’ app.
- Scroll down and select ‘Safari.’
- Scroll down to the bottom of the screen and select ‘Clear History and Website Data.’
- A pop-up will appear asking if you’re sure you want to do this. Tap on ‘Clear History and Data’ to confirm.
If you want to delete your browsing histories selectively, you can do that from the ‘History‘ section in Safari. It’ll let you delete items from the previous hour, day, two days, or all time.
If you use Chrome, the process is similar.
- Open the ‘Chrome’ app.
- Tap on the three dots in the top-right corner of the screen.
- Select ‘History.’
- Tap on ‘Clear Browsing Data.’
- You can choose how far back you want to delete data from the ‘Time Range’ drop-down menu.
- Select the ‘Clear Data’ button.
And there you go! Your browsing history will be deleted.
How to Delete Large Message Attachments
Your iPhone also saves all the photos or audio you receive through iMessage. Some of these may be of no use to you after you’ve viewed them, but they’re still stored on your iPhone and take up valuable space. So, it’s a good idea to go through and delete any large message attachments you don’t need anymore.
Here’s how to do it:
- Open the ‘Settings’ app.
- Select ‘General.’
- Scroll down and select ‘iPhone Storage.’
- Find the ‘Messages’ app in the list and tap on it.
- You should see different sections of documents, conversations, and photos. Tap on each one to view more information. You can now go through and delete any large attachments that you don’t need anymore.
Following these steps should help free up some valuable storage space on your iPhone. It’s recommended that you regularly check your system data and clear out any caches or browsing histories you don’t need. This will help keep your iPhone running smoothly and prevent potential storage issues