Deleting items you don’t use will free up space and make your device run faster. Click on the link to your device below for some simple tips for clearing space.
iPhone and iPad
The best way to free up space on your iPhone or iPad is to delete apps which you do not use. To find out which apps are hogging the most space, go to the Settings app > General > Usage and then tap on ‘Manage Storage’. From here you’ll see all of your apps arranged by which ones use the most space on your device. Have a look for any apps near the top which you don’t use and delete them. Be careful that you don’t delete any apps you use or which may contain important data, as you may not be able to get them back.
Another tip for creating more space and enabling your device to run faster is to clear apps running in the background. To do this, double tap the ‘Home’ button located at the front of your device. You will now see all the apps you have running and you can close them by simply swiping them upwards.
Click one of the following links if you would like to know how to clear up space on another one of your devices: iPhone, iPad, Android, PC & Mac.
Android
Clean Master is a free Android app that will keep an eye out for any junk that accumulates on your device and let you delete it with one tap. Another great feature of the app is that it also monitors your RAM and will allow you to easily close apps which are running in the background if they begin to slow down your device.
Available for free on the Google Play Store.
If you want to make more space, the best way to do it is to delete apps which you don’t use. To view a list of your device’s apps, go to the Application Manager, which can be found in your devices Settings app. Depending on the device you have, the Application Manager may be found in Settings underneath a subheading such as ‘Device’, ‘Applications’ or ‘Storage’. Once you have found it, you will see a list of all your apps. To sort them by size, either tap the category which states how much space they consume, or look for a ‘More’ button (often shown as an ellipsis ‘…’) and select ‘Sort by size’. From here, you’ll see all of your apps arranged by which ones use the most space on your device. Look for any apps near the top which you don’t use and delete them. Be careful that you don’t delete any apps you use or which may contain important data, as you may not be able to get them back.
Click one of the following links if you would like to know how to clear up space on another one of your devices: iPhone, iPad, Android, PC & Mac.
Windows
Clean Master is available for Windows and will effortlessly allow you to clean up some space. Visit the website to download for free.
If you want to clean some more, you can use the built in ‘Disk Cleanup’ tool. This will search for useless files on your computer, then delete them.
To use this tool on Windows 7, click the ‘Start’ button and then type ‘Disk Cleanup’ in the search box. From the the list of results, click ‘Disk Cleanup’.
Now from the ‘Drives’ list, which will open up, click the ‘hard disk drive’ you want to clean, and then click ‘OK’.
In the ‘Disk Cleanup’ dialog box, go to the ‘Disk Cleanup’ tab, then select the check boxes for the file types that you want to delete, and click ‘OK’. If you select more file types, more files will be deleted; therefore, more space will be cleared.
On the message that appears, click ‘Delete files’.
If you are using Windows 8, follow these instructions:
Go to the desktop and then swipe from the right edge of the screen and tap ‘Settings’. If you’re using a mouse, move your pointer to the lower-right corner of the screen, then move the mouse pointer up and then click ‘Settings’. Now tap or click ‘Control Panel’, then type ‘Admin’ in the Search box. Next, tap or click ‘Administrative Tools’ then double-tap or double-click ‘Disk Cleanup’.
From the ‘Drives’ list which appears, choose the ‘hard disk drive‘ you want to clean, and then tap or click ‘OK’.
You will now be shown the ‘Disk Cleanup’ dialog. Select the checkboxes for the file types that you want to delete and tap or click ‘OK’, then tap or click ‘Delete files’. If you select more file types, more files will be deleted; therefore, more space will be cleared.
Visit Microsoft’s website for more ways to clear space on Windows 7 and Windows 8.
If you are using Windows 10, follow these instructions:
Click the ‘Start’ button at the bottom lefthand corner and then tap or click ‘Settings’. Now click or tap on the the search bar at the top right and type ‘disk’ into the search field, then press enter.
From the search results click or tap on ‘Clear disk space by deleting uneccesasry files’, Windows will now run some brief calculations, after which you will be shown the ‘Disk Cleanup’ dialog.
Select the checkboxes for the file types that you want to delete and tap or click ‘OK’, then tap or click ‘Delete files’. If you select more file types, more files will be deleted; therefore, more space will be cleared.
Click one of the following links if you would like to know how to clear up space on another one of your devices: iPhone, iPad, Android, PC & Mac.
Mac
The quickest and easiest way to clear up space on your Mac, is to perform a search for items arranged by file size and delete any large ones which you do not need or use.
To do this, go to your ‘Desktop’, or open a ‘Finder’ window. Now hold down the ‘Command’ key on your keyboard, and whilst doing so, press the ‘F’ key. You should now be show the search screen.
The next step is to modify the search to target files of a certain size. To do this click, on the drop-down box with the word ‘Kind’ on it, and select ‘Other’ from the list, as show in the image below.
You will now be shown a list of search options. Scroll down to ‘File Size’, or search for it using the search box. Once you have located the option, check the box as shown below to add it to the search menu, then click ‘OK’.
Now using the drop-down boxes next to the ‘File Size’ option, modify the options so that you are searching for files sited greater than 5 MB. Now, right click next to where it says ‘Name’ (shown by a red circle in image below), and click ‘Size’ if it doesn’t have a tick next to it.
You should now have a list of all the files on your Mac which are above 5 MB. To arrange the list by file size, click where it says ‘Size’ as shown in the image below and ensure that the little arrow is pointing downwards, indicating that the list is in descending order.
Files which will show at the top of the list will typically be applications, videos or pictures. Look through them for anything that you do not need or use. Simply right click on the unwanted items and click ‘Move to Trash’.
Be careful that you don’t delete any apps or files you use or which contain important data, as you may not be able to get them back.
Once you have finished deleting unnecessary files, remember to empty your ‘Trash’. To do this, move your cursor to the bottom of the screen to bring up the ‘Dock’, then right click on the ‘Trash’ icon and select ‘Empty Trash’.
After you have finished this, turn your Mac off and back on again. Macs often store unnecessary data from previous updates and only delete them when the system is turned off.
Click one of the following links if you would like to know how to clear up space on another one of your devices: iPhone, iPad, Android, PC & Mac.
