My phone told me “storage full” for the fourth time in a week. I opened the storage settings expecting to find photos eating all the space. Photos were 12 GB. “Other” was 38 GB. What even is “Other”?

Turns out “Other” is mostly app caches, old message attachments, and duplicate files that your phone never cleans up on its own. Here is how I freed 20 GB without deleting a single photo.

The Offload Trick for iPhone

Settings > General > iPhone Storage > enable Offload Unused Apps. This removes the app itself but keeps all your data and documents. When you reinstall the app — which takes about ten seconds — everything is exactly where you left it. I offloaded twelve apps I had not opened in months and reclaimed 5 GB.

Clear App Caches Manually

Some apps let you clear their cache from within the app settings — Spotify, Safari, Chrome, Instagram, TikTok. Others do not, and the only way to clear their accumulated junk is to delete and reinstall them. Check your storage list: any app using more than 1 GB that is not photos or music should be deleted and reinstalled.

On Android, Settings > Apps > tap any app > Storage > Clear Cache. This is safe — it removes temporary files, not your data or login.

Message Attachments

Old text messages with photos and videos accumulate gigabytes silently. On iPhone: Settings > General > iPhone Storage > Messages > Review Large Attachments. Delete anything older than a year. On Android, go to Messages app settings and look for attachment storage.

I cleared 7 GB of message attachments from group chats I had not looked at since 2023.