6 hours ago
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If you've ever managed files on your computer, you know it can be, for the most part, very simple. There are drives, and in those drives are folders. In those folders are files. You can open them up, move them around and (barring some special circumstances) delete what you don't need. It's easy to organize in specific ways, by file size, for instance, to make managing them that much easier.
Plug an Android phone into your computer, and you'll find much of the same. There are folders and files, making it quick and easy to transfer or back up data and clean out the large files filling up your phone.
But if you plug in an iPhone, all bets are off. Can anything be done to make managing files on an iPhone easier? The answer is yes... sort of.
The problem
My wife recently got the dreaded warning messages that her iPhone storage was full. Apple helpfully shows how much storage is occupied by different types of data. If you've ever faced a similar warning, you've probably noticed that a great deal of that space is photos and videos. That was the case for my wife, and I figured a quick sweep to delete the biggest ones, often 4K resolution, would free up plenty of space.
That turned out to be true, but the process of clearing them out turned into more of a hassle than I expected.
Cleaning up your iPhone's storage can prove tricky.
Mark Knapp/CNETAccessing files on the iPhone
Getting to the files on an iPhone isn't too difficult. You can browse them freely on the phone itself, though it's not always readily apparent when a file is on the iPhone or actually stored in iCloud and just visible on the phone. This is a fairly slow way to manage files. Even worse, Apple doesn't provide a way to quickly see which files are the largest. So, making a quick sweep of large, unnecessary files is not possible. The best that can be done here is to simply view only videos and sift through them one by one.
Alternatively, you can plug an iPhone into a computer. After accepting a prompt on the device, it will show its photo library to the computer. That's a good start, but still not ideal. It breaks the library into folders by the month the content was captured. If you've owned your phone for a few years, this means you'll be looking at dozens of folders. Checking the folder size is yet again a one-by-one process.
Also read: The Lazy Way to Reclaim Your iPhone Storage Without Losing a Single Photo
Looking to simplify the process, I figured I'd copy backups of all the folders from the oldest year, and then bulk delete them from the phone. Nope. Not only does the iPhone seem to have a penchant for denying large file offloads by timing out partway through the backup, but it also refuses to allow the deletion of the folders. So then, to ensure data safety, I assume, the process becomes a tedious little nightmare: copy folder > check that copy was successful > open folder > select all files > delete all files > proceed to next folder > repeat. For a few years' worth of folders and relying on the 480-megabit-per-second speeds of the phone's USB 2.0, this becomes a lengthy and tedious process that doesn't even effectively target the original goal of clearing out large files.
There are workarounds
I assumed I was missing something. There had to be a better way. I already knew Google Drive was out. Sure, Wi-Fi uploads can actually outpace USB 2.0 speeds, but not always by much. Also, having reviewed a few iPhones over the years, I've found that every time I try to upload a bunch of photos to Google Drive, the iPhone will fail to complete all of the uploads and not offer to try again or even indicate in any way which files didn't make the leap.
Sure, there's iCloud. Everything can just get backed up there and deleted from the iPhone. But that's a costly solution that actually rewards Apple for not having a better method for iPhone owners to clean up their phone's storage.
Yes, the iPhone's Files app can sort files by file size. And that's a great way to tackle some of the bigger junk sitting on your phone. However, that's not combined with a quick way to back up the file elsewhere, nor does it let you see the photos and videos on the camera reel.
There is a workaround to view photos and videos in the Files app, or at least it appears that way. You can go to the Photos app, select all your photos/videos either one by one or, if they're in a collection, by hitting select all. Then you select Share to Files. From there, you can see them in files, sort by size and even (it appears) delete them.
So what's the problem with that? For one thing, this still doesn't help back them up elsewhere. But more importantly, it doesn't delete the original files. When the Photos app shares those files with the Files app, it makes copies to share, and when you delete them in the Files app, it just deletes the copies, leaving the original right where it was, taking up space.
I checked the Windows Photos app, which has an iPhone syncing feature. It shows all the local images in one pane, shows file sizes and allows bulk selection and deletion. However, it also doesn't allow sorting by file size or type. It will let you import items, but afterward it will deselect them in the phone, so you can't promptly delete them. If you toggle "Show only selected items" before importing, then you can quickly reselect the ones you imported and delete them. It's a step in the right direction for quick backup and deletion, but it doesn't help target large files to make file management easy.
I also checked the Apple Devices app for Windows, iTunes and Windows Phone Link. None of these can do the job, either. In fact, the Apple Devices app just tries to get me to fill the iPhone up with even more photos from my computer.
Backing up your iPhone on your Mac.
Nelson Aguilar/CNETJust to cover my bases, I tried Mac as well. The Photos app on Mac can show iPhone photos and let you import and then delete, but it also doesn't have any sorting methods to help quickly figure out what's worth deleting. The Mac has no better access to the phone's photo library file structure than Windows does. On a Mac, accessing the iPhone in Finder brings up sync settings. You can sync photos, but not manage them. You can manage storage, but just for movies, shows, songs, podcasts, audiobooks and books -- not photos and videos from the camera.
Also read: How to Free Up Your iPhone's Storage by Deleting Data You Don't Need
A helpful tool
Hitting a wall at every turn sent me trudging around the internet, where I found a sparkle of hope. There's another workaround of sorts, even if it wasn't the answer I hoped for.
A true genius among us recognized the problem and used Shortcuts to create the sort of tool Apple should have had all along. In Shortcuts, they built a quick automation that analyzes the video library, sorts by size and then creates a new album with the 30 largest video files. From there, you can then go into the Photos app, open that new album and select any of those large files you want to delete. Alas, as wonderfully as this helps with clean up, it doesn't help with backing up the files first. So it separates the process into backing up and deleting, rather than moving or offloading. It's a good place to start, though.
While this method still doesn't improve the iPhone's file management options, it at least helps clear out space so the iPhone can go back to working properly… even if properly doesn't mean conveniently.
