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User profile for user: -Boots
-Boots Author
User level: Level 1
12 points

Deleting files from iPhone to open memory

my iPhone storage is full so I uploaded my big attachments from my iPhone to my iCloud Drive and the next day I expected to see more space on my iPhone but instead there was less! How can that be? My iPhone has 32GB. Yesterday before I uploaded some big files to the iCloud Drive it was 31.3 GB and this morning it was 31.9 GB.

also today I checked delete conversations(texts) older than a year but when I decided I might loose lots of pictures that were attached to the texts I tried to undo it but it wouldn’t uncheck and now I can’t see it at all. I wish this whole business of permanently backing up files wasn’t so mysterious.

iPhone 7, iOS 13

Posted on Sep 12, 2020 8:16 PM

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User profile for user: Halliday
Halliday
User level: Level 4
2,677 points

Sep 12, 2020 9:14 PM in response to -Boots

Welcome, -Boots, to Apple Support Communities!


We see that your iPhone storage is very full, so you tried to store some of your big attachments (email or iMessage?) in iCloud Drive, while not having them remain on your iPhone.


Unfortunately, the way most of the Apps are designed, they retain versions of the files on your device, as well as placing them on iCloud. (Some have interpreted this, along with the way Apple used the iCloud in its early days, to mean that iCloud is only a “syncing” service. That’s not strictly true, but it’s not always too far from the effective behaviors.)


As a result, simply adding files to iCloud Drive doesn’t remove them from your device.


On the subject of your nearly full iPhone storage, is a great deal of the storage taken up by what is called “Other” (check Settings->General->iPhone Storage)?


(The “Other” category of storage is simply a “catch all” category for anything that doesn’t belong in any of the other named categories.)


What version of iOS is running on your iPhone?


You should (probably) follow the instructions in the document Clear Other storage on your iPhone or iPad - Apple Support, including making sure your iPhone is updated to the latest version of iOS.

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Deleting files from iPhone to open memory

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