iOS 11 will help you conserve precious iPhone storage

No more running out of space for photos.
 By 
Karissa Bell
 on 
Original image replaced with Mashable logo
Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

We've all been there: that dreaded pop-up letting you know you're almost out of storage.

While there are a few tricks for freeing up a bit of extra space without deleting anything, ultimately, the only way to deal with the issue is to start deleting.

Soon, however, that process could be a lot easier. A new feature, spotted in the developer preview for iOS 11, makes it much easier to figure out what to delete to free up that extra space.

A new setting in the iPhone storage menu in the main Settings app provides a list of tailored suggestions for how to free up extra space. The recommendations highlight areas where you could gain a lot of potential storage with minimal impact.

You might see a suggestion to empty your "recently deleted" album in photos or to delete large attachments or iMessage threads, for instance. You can act on each recommendation directly from the Settings app.

Additionally, there are new settings that can help ensure you don't run out of space in the first pace. A new "offload unused apps" feature can automatically remove apps (while preserving documents and data associated with them) that you're no longer using and an "auto delete old conversations" feature will automatically get rid of messages that are a year old.

That may not be enough to prevent you from ever running out of space to begin with (especially if you have a 16GB iPhone) but the new features should help people learn more about how their storage works and how to fix things a little less painfully if they do run out.

Topics Apple iOS iPhone

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Karissa Bell

Karissa was Mashable's Senior Tech Reporter, and is based in San Francisco. She covers social media platforms, Silicon Valley, and the many ways technology is changing our lives. Her work has also appeared in Wired, Macworld, Popular Mechanics, and The Wirecutter. In her free time, she enjoys snowboarding and watching too many cat videos on Instagram. Follow her on Twitter @karissabe.

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