How to Clear iCloud Storage

The free 5GB of storage with the standard iCloud plan fills up pretty fast. You can always buy iCloud storage with a premium subscription anytime. But, an easy way to maintain it for free is by regularly clearing the storage. 

To clear up your iCloud storage, you can use a computer or even your iPhone to delete items from your iCloud Drive.

How to Clear iCloud Storage?

Before we start with the steps, it’s a good idea to check your iCloud storage and see what items are taking up the most space. So you can have a better overview, and we can start by deleting those items. Follow these steps to check your storage.

1. Log in to iCloud on a web browser on your PC. 
2. Scroll down to the bottom and click on Your Storage. This will lead you to a new page where you can see more details. 
   
3. You can see the total amount of storage used and the total amount that’s free. 
   
4. Scroll down further, and you’ll see the app or file, like iCloud backup, documents that are taking up the majority of space in your iCloud.
   

Delete Files from iCloud Drive

Now, let’s get into how you can delete files on iCloud:

1. Visit iCloud on your web browser on a PC. 
2. Click on Drive. Here, you can find all your files and documents, including the Recently Deleted ones. 
3. Then, click on Browse.
   
4. To select multiple files, press CTRL (on Windows) or Command (on Mac) key while selecting your desired files. 
5. Now, click on the Delete icon. 

If you’re on an iPhone, you can delete files from the iCloud drive in these easy steps: 

1. Tap on the Files app. 
2. Select Browse from the bottom of the page. 
   
3. From the Locations section, tap on iCloud Drive. 
   
4. Tap on the three dots in the top-right corner and tap on Select. 
   
5. Select your desired files or folders and tap on Delete. 
   

Delete iCloud Backup on iPhone or iPad

You can delete your old backups on your iPhone or iPad with the following steps:

1. Go to your phone’s Settings. 
2. Tap on your Apple profile icon with your name.
3. Go to iCloud.
   
4. Tap on Manage Account Storage.  
   
5. Tap on Backups. You can see the size of your backup file as well. 
   
6. Select your iPhone. 
   
7. Here, you can view the list of apps that are backed up to your iCloud. To turn off backup for a specific app, slide the toggle next to it and select Turn Off. 
   
8. To remove all backups, tap on the Delete and Turn Off Backup option. 
   

Delete iCloud Mail

If you have hundreds of emails and/or they include large attachments, it’s a good idea to delete them to save space on iCloud. Here’s how to do it:

1. Open iCloud on your PC. 
2. Go to Mail. 
3. From the outer summary, you can make a note of which email is important and which is not. Press CTRL (on Windows) or Command (on Mac) and select all the emails you want to delete. 
   
4. Click on the Delete icon in the top-right corner. 

Delete Notes on iCloud

Your Notes can also have media or attachments of large sizes. So, here’s how to delete them easily:

1. Open iCloud on your browser and then click on Notes. 
2. Select a note and then click on the Delete This Note icon. 
   

Delete Messages on iPhone

If you’ve enabled the option to backup messages on your iCloud, they can also take up a lot of space. You can follow these methods on your iPhone or iPad to delete unwanted messages or substantial files and media. 

1. Open the Messages app on your iOS device. 
2. Go to any message with attachments. 
3. Tap on the individual’s name. 
4. Go to Info. This will lead you to the Details page, where you can find all the photos.
5. Tap on See All Photos. 
   
6. Tap on Select. Select the photos you want to delete. 
7. Tap on the Delete option. 
   
8. Confirm selection.