How To Decrease Your iCloud Backup Size
by Dom Esposito
September 9, 2012
Whether you’re new to iOS, or just want to pick up some useful tips and tricks, we're here to help. This is iOS Advice.
Using iCloud to backup your device can be very convenient. This feature will backup your data when the device is locked, plugged in, and connected to Wi-Fi. This will also eliminate the need to restore it using a computer in the future.
Apple gives every iCloud user 5GB of free storage space, but sometimes that isn’t enough for all of the data included in a default backup. Luckily, there’s a way to customize your backup and decrease the space it consumes in the clouds.
To decrease your device's iCloud Backup size, watch the video or follow the steps below:
Step 1: Go into the Settings app on your device and tap on iCloud.
Step 2: Next, scroll down to ”Storage & Backup” and tap on it.
Step 3: Under the “Storage” section, you’ll see the total and available storage you have in iCloud. To increase your available space, tap on “Manage Storage.”
Step 4: Select on the device you’d like to manage. On the next screen, you’ll be presented with a list of apps and the data associated with them.
Step 5: To disable iCloud Backup for a specific app’s data, use the toggle switch to the right of the app. You can also tap on “Show All Apps” at the bottom to display all of the apps installed on your device.
Once you’ve turned off iCloud Backup for an app, a red "Turn Off & Delete" button will appear. When you tap on that button, the app will be removed from the device’s iCloud Backup.
Note: This will not delete the app or data stored on your device, but it will remove the data from your iCloud Backup. Because apps are automatically included in an iCloud Backup and do not consume your free storage space, doing this will only delete the app's associated data from the backup.
Now that you’ve learned how to manage your iCloud backups, if there’s something else you’d like to see on iOS Advice, please let us know. Send us an email with your question or comment and we might feature your suggestion in a future article. If you need a little more advice, check out our other helpful tutorials.
