When you get an iPhone, you will automatically get 5GB of storage on the iCloud service owned by Apple for free. It might be enough for some people to have that size, but with today’s the higher capacity phones, buying an extra storage space for iCloud might be needed.
There are four storage plans offered by Apple to choose from. You are able to upgrade from the Settings app of your iPhone.
- 5 GB: This one is a free plan that you can get by default with the new iPhone. Feel free to always choose to downgrade back to this one even after you have subscribed another one.
- 50 GB: This one costs $0.99 each month and it is generally plenty to back up both an iPhone and an iPad on the same Apple ID.
- 200 GB: This one costs $2.99 each month and it is able to be shared among all the devices in a family.
- 2 TB: This one costs $9.99 each month and just like the above one, it is able to be shared with a family as well.
In order to buy more iCloud storage for your iPhone, here are all the steps that you will have to follow:
- The first thing that you will have to do is to start the Settings app and then tap the name at the top of the screen.
- Then, tap iCloud and then tap Manage Storage. For those who are using iOS 10.2 or older, please tap Storage.
- In case you do not currently have an iCloud storage subscription, you will need to tap Buy More Storage. If you already have one but you want to increase it, then tap Change Storage Plan instead.
- After that, choose a plan on the Upgrade iCloud Storage page.
- Lastly, tap Buy and input your Apple ID password to complete the process of transaction.
In most cases, the iCloud storage is not always used as a substitute for your local or internal storage on your iPhone. Aside from that, you can use it to save the data manually, but the thing named iCloud is usually created to synchronized and backup your information manually.
Basically, buying more storage is not the only thing that will fix the issue if you are getting the message that your iPhone is almost full. The reason is iCloud Backup reflects what you have stored on your device locally.
This page will cover some different places that you can look if you want to free up your iCloud storage. However, outside of these if it is mostly taken up by the device backups you will have to cut the amount of content stored on your iPhone itself.
- Managing backups
To manage the backups, you will have to tap on Settings on your iPhone or iPad. Then, swipe down until the iCloud is seen. Next, tap on iCloud and then Storage. The last thing that you will need to do is to tap on Manage Storage.
Once you are on the section named Manage Storage, you can start to look at some different kinds of backups. Please tap on any of them if you want to get more details. Now, it is time for you to go through and delete any old or unnecessary backups.
- Managing Mail
The Mail section is another place that you can look if you use an @icloud.com, @me.com, or @mac.com email address. This one is able to be found toward the bottom of the Manage Storage section. You may get a decent amount of storage. Everything depends on the amount of messages and the amount of attachments that you have. You do not have to worry if the size of the Mail is small. You are encouraged to compare the Mail usage to the overall iCloud storage in order to see if you need to spend your time deleting email.
- Managing iCloud Photo Library
You will be able to see the amount of space that is being used for iCloud Photo Library on your device. If it is large, navigate to the Photos app and remove the video first and then photos that you want. For those who want to keep everything, you might want to consider paying the $0.99 per month for more iCloud storage. Another way is to turn off the iCloud Photo Library. Before doing so, keep in mind that the everything that you have will not automatically be synchronized across your Apple devices.
- iCloud Drive
Anyone who wants to reduce the amount of iCloud storage that is being used by particular apps, you are able to tap on Documents & Data in right in settings or go to the app itself and view and delete the data. If you want to delete the data that you have saved to iCloud Drive from any device that you use, you can navigate to the app known as iCloud Drive. Next, navigate through the folders to check if you want to delete everything. Once you have found the one that you want to remove, please tap on Select located in the right corner, tap on the folder or file and then choose Delete in the bottom right corner. Apparently, the content is also able to be deleted from iCloud Drive from your Mac or icloud.com.
If your iCloud storage usage still does not have enough space even after following the instructions above, it is better for you to take a look at either upgrading your plan, selecting to backup manually instead of using iCloud, or deleting more content. Please think about it first and take time.
If you have any questions related to how to buy more iCloud storage to increase the capacity of your iPhone, you can try to reach out the representative of Apple. You can find the contact on the official website of Apple. In addition, the community of iPhone might also help you.
AUTHOR BIO
On my daily job, I am a software engineer, programmer & computer technician. My passion is assembling PC hardware, studying Operating System and all things related to computers technology. I also love to make short films for YouTube as a producer. More at about me…
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