Quick Tip: Clear Storage Space on Your iPhone by Uninstalling and Reinstalling Them To Get Rid of their “Documents and Data”
In this Quick Tip, I'll cover one of the best ways to tidy up your iPhone in terms of storage space, and it's something that might not occur to people right away because it's not often talked about.
The iPhone does not have a feature or app that does a "System Cleanup", though CCleaner and the like are options. Our iPhones come with so much storage space and the very affordable option of iCloud storage space that storage space on the device is not often a concern unless you're reaching the limit and get alerts about it.
A great way to clear out some storage space is to remove "Documents and Data" related to any given app. The only real drawback is that you will likely need to log back into the app to use it again, but that's minor.
An added step to tidy things up is to remove the app from your iPhone and install it again from the app store.
Here's a quick guide on how to do this.
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Open up Settings, and tap "General".
Scroll down a bit and tap "iPhone Storage".
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Under the app info, you'll see "Documents and Data" with the amount of storage space that is taking up. In this example, Amazon is taking up 883.5MB.
The only way to remove the Documents and Data is to remove the app from your iPhone.
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You can delete the app right from this screen. Simply tap "Delete app" below the app info.
Alternatively, find the app on your iPhone, then press and hold the app so that ALL apps are jiggling with the dash ("-") icon at the top left of each app. Tap the dash to remove the app. You may also see a menu where you can tap "remove".
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Now go to the App Store and find the app. Since you've used the app before, you'll see a cloud symbol with an arrow pointing down. Tap that.
Once it's installed again, you can go back into the iPhone Storage settings and you'll see that Documents and Data take up much less space.
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I will note that by removing and reinstalling any given app, the iPhone treats it as a new app and places it in a random spot on your Home Screens, possibly on the last page. So you'll need to press, hold, and drag it to where you want it to be again.
There is no automated way to do this. It must be done app-by-app, so that can be time-consuming, but it can also mean clearing out a significant amount of storage space on your iPhone, so that's generally worth it.
As I said, by removing and reinstalling any given app, you'll need to organize it again on your home screens, so that's a bit of a pain.
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