Free up storage space on your iPhone in iOS 8 with this quick tip

BY Gautam Prabhu

Published 17 Sep 2014

Storage space on the iPhone comes at a premium, so if you use your iPhone as a point-and-shoot camera, and concerned about running out of storage space, then iOS 8 has a cool new feature to save storage space.

iOS 8 gives you the ability to store device optimized version of the photos and videos on your iPhone, and upload the full resolution versions to your iCloud account, to save storage space on your device. If you’re running out of storage space, it’s a good idea as you don’t really need the full resolution images on iOS devices like the iPhone.

How to save storage space on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch

Here are the steps to keep the device optimized version of the photos and videos on your iPhone:

  • Tap on the Settings app from the Home screen.
  • Then tap on Photos & Camera
  • This feature needs iCloud Photo Library, which will only be available when you upgrade to iCloud Drive, so ensure that iCloud Photo Library toggle is enabled.  Please note that iCloud Drive is currently in Beta so there are some concerns, so do proceed with caution.
  • Then tap on Optimize iPhone Storage to select it. Download and Keep Originals is selected by default.

Optimize iPhone storage - iOS 8

That’s it. iOS will now store device-optimized versions on your iPhone, which will reduce the storage space used for photos and videos on your device.

If you want to access the full resolution image then you have to access it using the web app or turn on Download and Keep Originals as there is no way to access full resolution versions individually.

You can watch the video walkthrough to see the feature in action:

Let me know how it goes in the comments.