MacLife - UK (2020-04)

Apps are shown in order of size, so you can easily

recognize the space hogs and remove them.

Detox your

iPhone or iPad

O

NCE UPON A time, iPhones

and iPads came with very small

amounts of storage compared to

Macs. These days, their options overlap

all the way from 128GB to 1TB. Even so,

most of us have relatively little room on

our mobile devices, which can quickly

amass apps, photos, videos, and

downloaded content.

On the other hand, most

of it is likely to be either

purchased from the iTunes

Store or synced to iCloud.

You can take advantage of

this by leaving your content

in the cloud until it’s needed,

saving space in your device’s

onboard storage.

Because iOS and iPadOS

give you less freedom to

screw up their file systems,

it’s unlikely you will ever

have anything to gain by

wiping your device. But

you’ll certainly want to

do so before selling it or

passing it on to the next

family member.

And it’s also worth

making sure you keep it

backed up: even if most of

your stuff is in iCloud anyway, the

gratifying simplicity of restoring a new

device from a backup will mitigate the

stress of fumbling your original one into

that woodchipper. For more details on

that, see bit.ly/apple-resticloud.

1

Remove unwanted

apps

Everyone knows to touch and hold an app

icon on your Home screen to make all the

icons jiggle, each showing a cross that you

can tap to delete it. Nowadays, the touch

and hold first pops up a menu, where you

can choose Edit Home Screen to do the

jiggly thing or simply tap Delete App. But it

makes more sense to go to Settings >

General > iPhone (or iPad) Storage and

scroll down to the list of apps. This way you

can see how much space each app is

taking up, so you know if deleting it will

help. They’re shown in order of size.

Some of the amount shown may be

data associated with the app rather than

the app itself. Tap an app to see the

breakdown. You can then choose Offload

App, which removes the app but keeps the

data so you can access it again if you

reinstall the app, or Delete App, which

trashes the whole lot. Before choosing the

latter, be sure you understand whether

your data exists somewhere else (such as

in iCloud, Game Center or a third–party

If your mobile storage needs

decluttering too, start here...

>>> If you need to wipe

everything from an

iPhone or iPad, including

all your personal data and logins,

go to Settings > General > Reset

and tap Erase All Content and

Settings. Hang on, though: first

check that you have an iCloud

backup (see “How to back up your

device to iCloud”).

Erasing your

device

Image rights: Apple.

Feature

28 APR 2020 maclife.com