If you’re experiencing memory storage issues with your Apple iPhone, you’re not alone.
Like many iPhone users around the world, you’ve likely woken up one day to a pop-up message on your screen that says: “Not Enough Storage – You can manage your storage in Settings.”
You click ‘Close’, but that pop-up message appears again and again, day after day. At this point you’re probably wondering: If I bought an iPhone with the most storage I could, why is this happening to me?!
Whether it says ‘Storage Almost Full’, or ‘iPhone cannot be backed up’, the solution is always the same: pay for more iCloud storage.
The good news is, there’s a simple fix that will negate the need to spend extra on monthly storage fees and still keep all your media safe and sound.
Why is this happening?
There are two places where your iPhone can store all your media: one is on the smartphone itself, in the internal memory storage; the other is in a cloud (think: online) service, like Apple’s own iCloud. The latter is a mirror of everything on your smartphone, and can be retrieved should you ever lose your device.
With every new iPhone released comes better camera hardware, a better processing chip for more powerful apps and a larger internal memory to store all your media – songs, photos, videos, what have you.
But alongside all this wonderful hardware is the software that drives it, which now comes conveniently packed with automated cloud back-up features to ensure that if you ever lose your device, you won’t lose all your precious memories.
A cheeky change
This is where the above-mentioned iCloud pop-up message comes in. A little while ago, Apple began issuing iOS updates with iCloud photo storage switched on by default.
This meant that once you updated to the new iOS, or simply activated a brand new device, your iPhone automatically began backing up photos to your iCloud account.
This was fine if you didn’t have a lot to back up, but the moment you hit the maximum free storage level (5GB), BAM! You get a pop-up message telling you to manage your storage options, for a price.
Buying extra iCloud storage starts at $1.49 per month for an extra 50GB of cloud memory, with larger 200GB ($4.49) and 2TB ($14.99) plans that can also be shared with family, which may work out as a reasonable solution.
But what do you do if you don’t want to shell out very month for extra iCloud storage?
The simple fix
To remedy this, just follow these simple steps: Go to Settings > scroll down and select Photos > then toggle the switch next to iCloud Photo Library to the off position.
This will stop your iPhone automatically uploading every new photo to your iCloud account. Also ensure that My Photo Stream and iCloud Photo Sharing are switched to off.
Then, to manually back-up your media, simply connect your iPhone to your iMac or MacBook, via a Lightning cable. Then on your Mac, open the Photos application. To begin backing up your photos, click the top, right box that says Import All New Items.
Power to the people
If you want to go one step further and handle media and data storage manually, there is a way to take complete control of how your iPhone handles iCloud storage.
Make sure you’re using iOS 11.2.2, then on your iPhone go to: Settings > select your Apple ID at the top > iCloud > Manage Storage.
You will now see a list of every service and app on your iPhone that can use iCloud storage, with a toggle to the right of each. Simply toggle the switch to enable or disable iCloud storage for a particular app.
