With all the hype over iCloud, it’s easy to forget that there’s a limited amount of “local” storage for all your apps, photos, music, videos, and other data.

Once that happens, you’ll get an unwelcome error message the next time you make an App Store purchase: “Cannot Download: There is not enough available storage to download these items.”
Uh-oh.
If you worried that your iPhone (or iPod Touch, or iPad) is running out of room, don’t fret.
Not only is it easy to check how much storage you have left, you can also see what’s hogging all your storage space. Finally, you can clear more room in just a few swipes.
Here’s how…

• Tap the Settings icon on your iPhone (or iPad) home screen, then tap General, and finally Usage (it’s the third option from the top).
• Next, you’ll arrive at the Usage screen—and at the very top, you’ll see how much storage space is left on your iPhone, in gigabytes. After a few seconds, you’ll get a detailed list of the biggest storage hogs on your device, in descending order.
• See a jumbo-sized app that you could live without? Tap its name, then tap the red “Delete App” button. If you ever have a change of heart, you can re-download any free or purchased apps from the App Store.


You can delete specific apps and videos directly from the Usage screen.
• Photos and videos shot with the iPhone’s camera may also be among the biggest storage hogs on your iPhone, particularly if you rarely (or never) delete snapshots from the Camera Roll. You can delete photos one-by-one from the Photos app (just tap Edit, Delete), or you can zap all your photos in one swipe once you tap the “Photos & Camera” entry from the Usage screen. Keep in mind, though, that any photos you delete will be gone for good—that is, unless you’ve synced them with iTunes or uploaded them to your Photo Stream in iCloud.
• Movies and TV shows can be deleted one-by-one from the Usage screen by selecting the Videos entry and tapping the Edit button; music, however, can only be wiped all at once, unless you start swiping from the Music app. (By the way: iTunes Match storage is managed automatically by your iPhone, which means specific tracks can’t be deleted individually. Strange, I know, but that’s the way it is for now.) And again, remember that you can always re-download and movies, TV shows, or music purchased through the App Store.

How to Find out what’s hogging all your storage space
original article here

Read More..

Sarah writes: I keep getting a message that says I don’t have enough available storage to back up my iPhone 4S. I have the free 5 GB account and only 1.5 GB available.
I am truly not a geek who saves everything. Any suggestions as to where I might look what is consuming GB?
Hi Sarah! You’d be surprised how easy it is to bust over your free 5 GB iCloud storage limit, even when you’re not backing up reams of documents, podcasts, or other app data on your iPhone (or iPad).
What’s the culprit? Well, I have my suspicions.
First, though, let me show you how to check exactly what’s hogging all the storage space in your iCloud account.

You can check how much iCloud space your various apps are using, or even turn off iCloud Backup for a given app by flipping the “On/Off” switch.

Here’s what you do…

• Tap Settings, iCloud, then scroll down the page and tap the Storage and Backup button.
• Next, under the Storage heading, tap Manage Storage, then tap the entry for your iPhone (“Sarah’s iPhone,” for example) in the Backups section.
• The next screen should detail everything you need to know about your latest iCloud backup, including when it was performed, the total amount of space it’s using, and how much iCloud storage each of your individual apps is taking—or hogging, as the case may be. The list of apps should start with your Camera Roll, then proceed according to iCloud storage size.

So, what’s most likely to be hogging all your iCloud backup space? My guess: snapshots and videos.
Unless you regularly (and manually) delete images from your iPhone’s Camera Roll, the photos and videos you take will gradually pile up until they’re taking up several gigabytes of storage space—both on your iPhone itself and in your iCloud backup.
Videos, in particular, can take up a gargantuan amount of storage space.
(Note: Keep in mind that your Photo Stream images don’t count against your 5 GB of free iCloud storage.)
Another likely suspect: podcasts, which (on my iPhone, anyway) can hog several hundred megabytes of storage—or even more, if you’re a video podcast fan.

Running out of iCloud Backup space? One option: buy more storage.

Running out of iCloud Backup space? One option: buy more storage.
Once you’ve ID’d your iCloud backup hogs, you’ve got a few options for reclaiming (or getting more) storage space:

• Buy more iCloud storage: The first 5 GB of iCloud storage is free; after that, you’ll have to pony up. You can get a total of 10 GB of iCloud storage for $20 a year, 20 GB of storage for $40 a year, or 50 GB for $100/year. To buy more storage straight from your iPhone, tap Settings, iCloud, Storage & Backup, then tap the Change Storage Plan button.
• Trim data from your apps: So, did you discover that your Camera Roll has ballooned to a few gigabytes in size? You can always start deleting photos and videos manually, or you could sync your iPhone images with iPhoto or your Windows PC and then delete everything off your camera roll at once (Settings, General, Usage, Photos & Camera, then swipe the Camera Roll entry and tap the red Delete button). Or, got too many podcasts? Try deleting old episodes from your Podcasts app.
• Deactivate iCloud Backup for specific apps: You can always exclude a particular app from iCloud Backup if you don’t feel the need to keep a secure copy of its data. Go back to the screen that details how much space each app is using in iCloud, then flip the switch for any app you wish (including Camera Roll) from “On” to “Off.” Don’t forget, though, that if you switch off iCloud Backup for a given app, its data may be lost forever if something bad happens to your iPhone.

Hope that helps, Sarah. Still have questions? Let me know!

Bonus

Is iCloud still refusing to back up your iPhone even after you’ve trimmed your Camera Roll and/or app data?
Try this: delete your latest (and massive, most likely) iCloud Backup file to clear enough space in your iCloud account.
Go back to the screen with all your iCloud Backup details, scroll down to the bottom, then tap the Delete Backup button.
Now, return to the first Storage & Backup screen, scroll down, and tap the Back Up Now button.

What’s hogging all your backup space? (reader mail)

Read More..