Why am I getting “Not enough storage available” message on iPhone or iPad?
As you take photos with your device or download applications, the amount of information stored on your device increases. Over time, as the amount of information increases, you may run into storage issues. Understanding what the “Not enough storage available” notification means is the key to resolving the issue.
There are usually two reasons why your iPhone or iPad may display a “Not enough storage available” notification: either the device’s internal storage capacity is almost full, or the iCloud storage limit has been reached. Any of these situations can occur when there is a large amount of data stored on your device.
iPhone or iPad storage capacity
Using an iPhone or iPad, most people typically install apps, take photos and videos, download music or books, browse the Internet, and check email. Over time, as more and more information is downloaded and stored on your device, the amount of available storage space on your device will decrease.
To think about this another way, let’s compare your iPhone to a large cardboard box and an app to a much smaller cardboard box. When you download an app, a certain amount of iPhone storage space is required to hold the app. Similarly, when you put the small box in the big box, it takes up a certain amount of space in the big box. As you continue to put small boxes in the big box, eventually the big box will fill up and no more small boxes can be stored in the big box. Every app, photo, video, song, book, or document stored on your iPhone is the equivalent of a little box, and eventually your iPhone can get full.
Depending on the size of your device (16 GB, 32 GB, 64 GB, or 128 GB) and the type of data that is typically stored on the device, it often takes a long time to reach the storage capacity of your device. Many people will never use all of their device’s storage capacity. However, if you take a lot of videos or store movies on your device, you may have seen an insufficient storage available notification on your device. If your device’s internal storage is full, you won’t be able to take additional photos or download any new apps until you delete some data from your device.
There is not enough storage available on the device
To check if your device’s internal storage is full, go to Settings -> General -> Usage and check the amount listed as Available in the Storage section at the top of the window. If the number drops to a few available megabytes (MB), your device’s storage is basically full.
There is also a list of apps that indicates the amount of storage used for each app. The apps that use the most storage are listed at the top. This can be helpful in determining what data can be removed from the device. As an example, if the Messages app is near the top of the list. Deleting old messages will free up some storage space. Also, if Photos & Camera is near the top of the list, chances are you’ve taken a lot of photos or videos. To free up space, you may need to move some of the photos and videos from your device to your computer. If there are lots of apps on your device, you may need to remove some apps that you no longer use. If you downloaded a movie to your device, this will also use a lot of storage.
If you connect your device to iTunes on your computer and select the Summary page for the device, the graph at the bottom of the page will show its memory usage. You can use this to help find what is using up a lot of your device’s storage capacity.
Not enough storage available for iCloud backup
You have two options when it comes to backing up your iPhone or iPad:
- Back up to your computer using iTunes, or
- Backup to iCloud.
Apple provides each iCloud user with 5GB of free storage space to back up their devices. As you accumulate more and more data on your device, the amount of storage space required for backup also increases. Over time, it’s possible to exceed the iCloud storage limit of 5 GB, and your device will display a notification of insufficient available storage. This indicates that your device cannot back up to iCloud.
If the message says there’s no more iCloud storage available, you’ll need to reduce the amount of data backed up to iCloud or turn off iCloud Backup entirely. If you decide to turn off iCloud Backup, go to Settings -> iCloud -> Storage & Backup and set the iCloud Backup slider to the off position. Going forward, any backups will need to be done with iTunes on your computer.
Alternatively, if you want to continue using iCloud for backups without deleting any backed up data, you’ll need to purchase a storage plan from Apple by going to Settings -> iCloud -> Storage & Backup -> Change Storage Plan. You’ll see a list of all available iCloud storage plans.