Almost everybody has gotten the dreaded “Not Enough iCloud Storage” notification. Most of the time, we ignore it, press the “Close” button, and carry on with whatever we are doing. The amount of space in your iCloud drive is usually not something to worry about until you have no room left to take a picture or download a song to your music library. Plus, if your phone isn’t backed up while being damaged, lost, or stolen, you could risk losing thousands of pictures, videos, and messages — not to mention a ton of other extremely sensitive data. Don’t wait until it is too late. Follow this outline to manage iCloud storage before backing up your device.
Every Apple ID account comes with five gigabytes (GB) of free storage on iCloud. However, that is not nearly enough to entirely back up your iPhone, iPad, or other Apple device. Follow these steps to back up your data with more iCloud storage.
The first step is to see how much cloud storage you currently have on your device. To check your storage space, sign in to your Apple ID through Settings, go to iCloud, and then “Manage Storage.” Then, select “Backups,” which will show the list of iOS devices backed up on your iCloud and how much memory (GB) each is using. Feel free to remove device backups that you no longer need but, be cautious as you will lose this data once deleted.
When you select your current device, you will see the date of your last backup and the size of the memory that it is using. You will also be able to see the amount of storage needed for your next backup.
In this next step, you’ll have your chance to free up space. Select “Choose Data To Back Up” under the “Next Backup Size” option on the screen. From here, select which apps that you would like to back up data from. You can browse through different apps and programs and decide what you use the least. It is unlikely that you will be able to reduce your app data to under 5GB, but it should lower your amount enough to reduce the time it will take to back up your device.
Before you back up your device, make sure your iPhone is updated. Now that you have selected the data you want to back up, it is time to determine which iCloud backup method you will use. Assuming you need way more than the 5GB of storage given to all iCloud accounts, there are two options to consider.
It is vital to back up your iPhone as much as possible to ensure that you have your data if your device breaks. If your device is currently damaged, make sure you get it repaired to prevent further damage and data loss. Reach out to store near you for a free quote on your iPhone, Mac, or other Apple Device.