How to Clear App Data on iOS

This is an article on how to delete data stored by apps on iPhone or iPad. App data is data created (or downloaded) while you use an app, such as music you download from Spotify or audio tracks downloaded from GarageBand. In most cases, to delete all app data, you need to delete the app and reinstall it through the App Store. However, for some apps, including most that come pre-installed on your iPhone or iPad, you can erase data on your iPhone or iPad through iCloud. Clearing app data is one of the ways to free up space on your phone or tablet.

Table of Contents

Clear app data on iCloud

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Open Settings

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on iPhone. It’s the gray gear icon on the home screen or in the app list. Depending on the data of the app to delete, you can do it right in the iCloud settings. This only works when iCloud is turned on on your phone or tablet.

Deleting app data using this method also deletes data on your phone or tablet, iCloud, and any other devices that were used to sync with the iCloud account. Here’s how to clear data on Apple apps and some third-party apps.
Refer to this method if you want to clear browsing data on Safari

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Tap your name above the Settings menu.

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Tap iCloud . You’ll see this option in the second group of settings.

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Tap Manage Storage . This is the option at the top of the screen, just below the iCloud storage space information. You will now see a list of apps backed up to iCloud and how much data is stored there and on your iPhone/iPad.

If you don’t see the app you’re looking for here, clear the app data by deleting the app. You can reinstall the app right after to refresh it.

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Tap the app that needs to be cleared. The capacity of each app and the amount of data consumed on iCloud are displayed next to the app name.

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Tap the Delete Data link. Depending on the app, you have to swipe down to find this option, and the content displayed also varies. A confirmation message will be displayed immediately.

If you clear the Messages app’s data, all existing iMessage conversations will also disappear.
Deleting data from the iCloud Drive (iCloud Storage) app will delete any files stored here.

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Tap Delete to confirm. Now the selected data is no longer on iCloud, iPhone/iPad and other devices have been synced.

If you don’t want the app to save data on iCloud, tap the back button until you see the iCloud screen, and tap the slider next to the app to turn the feature off.

Delete apps and data

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Open the Settings app

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. Tap the gear icon on the home screen to open Settings.

If you want to delete all the information an app has stored on your iPhone and iPad, deleting the app is an effective way. You can reinstall the app again if you like, for a fresh start.
This won’t work for most Apple apps that come pre-installed on your iPhone or iPad, because you can’t delete them. ^{[1] X Research Source}

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Tap General . This is the option next to the gray gear icon in the third group of options.

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Tap iPhone Storage (iPhone Storage) or iPad Storage (iPad Storage). This option is available in the fourth group of settings. After a while, your iPhone or iPad will show the size of each app.

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Swipe down and tap the app. All apps installed on your iPhone or iPad show up below the iPhone/iPad Storage menu. The capacity of each app is displayed next to the app name.

The amount of space used by the application is displayed to the right of the application. Find the apps that use the most space that you no longer want to use.

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Compare the application size with the amount of data used. At the top of the app’s info screen, you’ll see two numbers. App Size indicates the original capacity of the application, and Documents & Data indicates the amount of data stored on the application.

If you find Documents & Data large, deleting the app and reinstalling will increase the free space on your phone or tablet.
If the application is large in size, deleting and reinstalling will not increase the free space.

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Tap Delete App . It’s a button with red text at the bottom of the information screen. An immediate confirmation message appears asking if you want to delete the app.

If you want to delete apps instead of data, tap Offload App . This is an option to save documents and data related to the application, in case you want to reinstall the application with the saved information.
Some apps, such as Spotify, save a lot of data because of the content you download. You can always go into the app and disable the data download feature to save space instead of downloading and reinstalling the app.

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Tap Delete App to confirm. It’s an option at the bottom of the screen. The app and associated documents and data are all removed from the iPhone or iPad.

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Reinstall the app through the App Store. After deleting the app (and related data; this usually happens automatically when deleting the app), you can reinstall the app through the App Store and start fresh. This way, you will have a fresh installation of the application without losing previously saved documents and data.

Clear browsing data on Safari

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Open Settings

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of the iPhone. It’s an app with a gray icon on the home screen or in the App Library.

Use this method to clear Safari browsing data, including cache, history, and cookies. This will help you increase the free space on your phone, tablet, and iCloud.

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Swipe down and tap Safari . This is the blue compass icon that usually shows up in the fifth set of settings.

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Swipe down and tap Clear History and Website Data . This option is near the bottom of the menu. The confirmation message immediately appears.

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Tap Clear History and Data to confirm. The saved browsing history and data will now be deleted from the device.

Advice

Many applications have the option of deleting data available. If the app downloads and generates a lot of data, you need to check the app’s settings to see if the data can be deleted there.
If you delete an app to clear data, keep in mind that logging into the app after reinstalling will automatically display data downloaded from the app’s servers. You need to adjust the settings in the app to prevent downloading of personal data on your iPhone or iPad.

Steps

Clear app data on iCloud

Delete apps and data

Clear browsing data on Safari

Advice

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