iCloud storage: how many GB you need and how to save money
Apple gives every account 5 GB of iCloud for free, which isn't enough for a phone backup with photos for practically anyone. For an average user with a few thousand photos, 50 GB is enough; anyone who takes photos and shoots video daily needs 200 GB; a family with shared storage typically needs 2 TB. Before upgrading your plan, go to Settings → your name → iCloud → Manage Account Storage — the most space is usually taken up by old backups of unused devices, Messages attachments, and videos. Deleting them often lets you fit back into a smaller plan. iCloud capacity is independent of your phone's storage capacity — a 256GB iPhone doesn't give you more iCloud.
Apple gives every account 5 GB of iCloud for free, which isn't enough for a phone backup with photos for practically anyone. For an average user with a few thousand photos, 50 GB is enough; anyone who takes photos and shoots video daily needs 200 GB; a family with shared storage typically needs 2 TB. Before upgrading your plan, go to Settings → your name → iCloud → Manage Account Storage — the most space is usually taken up by old backups of unused devices, Messages attachments, and videos. Deleting them often lets you fit back into a smaller plan. iCloud capacity is independent of your phone's storage capacity — a 256GB iPhone doesn't give you more iCloud.
In this article
- iCloud is not the same as phone storage
- How to find out what's using your iCloud storage
- How to free up space for free
- How many GB you need by user type
- Optimise Storage: the feature almost everyone overlooks
- How to back up properly before replacing your phone
- Which iPhone to buy if you want to save on iCloud
iCloud is not the same as phone storage
The most common confusion: phone capacity (64 to 512 GB depending on the model) and iCloud capacity have nothing to do with each other. Phone capacity is the physical memory in the device, while iCloud is space on Apple's servers, paid for separately via a monthly subscription.
What iCloud does:
- Backs up your phone. If you lose it or break it, you restore a new device from the backup, including apps, settings and your home screen layout.
- Syncs photos. With iCloud Photos turned on, images are available on all your devices, and the phone can keep only shrunk-down previews.
- Keeps contacts, calendar, notes and passwords synced across devices.
- Stores files in the iCloud Drive folder.
That's why it happens that you have a 256GB phone that's half empty, yet iCloud tells you it's full — it's the free 5GB quota that's full, not the phone.
How to find out what's using your iCloud storage
Before you start paying more, check where the space is going. It takes two minutes.
1. Open the storage overview
Settings → tap your name at the top → iCloud. At the top you'll see a coloured bar broken down by category.
2. Open Manage Account Storage
A list sorted by size appears — usually Photos, Backups, Messages, iCloud Drive.
3. Check Backups
This is usually where the biggest saving is. You'll often find backups of phones you haven't had for years. Delete these — they have nothing to do with your current phone.
4. Look at Messages
Attachments from conversations (videos, GIFs, photos from group chats) can take up tens of gigabytes.
5. Go through iCloud Drive
Old documents, installers and files from apps you no longer use.
How to free up space for free
Methods listed roughly by how much space they typically save.
- Delete backups of old devices: Manage Account Storage → Backups → select a device you no longer have → Delete Backup. This most often frees up 5–30 GB at once.
- Turn off backup for apps that don't need it: In the backup details you can see how much data each app is using. You don't need to back up streaming services, games and apps with their own cloud.
- Clean up attachments in Messages: Settings → General → iPhone Storage → Messages → Review Large Attachments. Also set messages to automatically delete after a year.
- Go through the Recently Deleted folder in Photos: Deleted photos still take up space for 30 days. Manually emptying the trash helps immediately.
- Delete duplicate photos: Photos → Albums → Duplicates. iOS can find and merge duplicates with a single tap.
- Move videos elsewhere: Videos are by far the biggest space hog. Copy longer recordings to a computer or an external drive and delete them from the phone.
How many GB you need by user type
Rough recommendations. A year of average photography adds roughly 15–30 GB, and much more with frequent video recording.
| 5 GB (free) | Enough only for contacts, calendar and notes. Practically never enough for a full phone backup with photos. |
|---|---|
| 50 GB | An average user with a few thousand photos who doesn't shoot much video. The most common choice and the cheapest paid plan. |
| 200 GB | For anyone who takes photos daily, shoots video, or wants to back up more devices. This plan can be shared via Family Sharing. |
| 2 TB and above | A family with several iPhones and iPads, photographers, anyone working with video. Sharing among family members is the main reason here. |
| Alternative: no subscription | Back up your phone to a computer via cable and download photos manually. It works, but requires discipline — most people put off the backup and end up losing data. |
Optimise Storage: the feature almost everyone overlooks
In Settings → Photos you'll find the Optimize iPhone Storage option. When you turn it on, the phone keeps only the photos you're currently viewing in full quality, and keeps the rest as shrunk-down previews. The originals stay in iCloud and download when you open them.
What this means in practice: you can have a 40 GB photo library even on a 64GB phone. The downside is that you can't access the originals without internet, and downloading a large video takes a moment.
The second option, Download and Keep Originals, keeps everything on the phone. Choose it only if you have plenty of space and often work offline.
Watch out for one thing: iCloud Photos is not a backup in the true sense. It's synchronisation. If you delete a photo on your phone, it disappears from iCloud and from all your other devices too. A real safety net is a second copy outside iCloud — for example, on a hard drive on your computer.
How to back up properly before replacing your phone
The critical moment when a full iCloud hurts the most. You can manage the process in ten minutes.
1. Free up space in advance
Check that you have at least as much free space in iCloud as the estimated size of the backup. Otherwise the backup will silently fail.
2. Run a manual backup
Settings → your name → iCloud → iCloud Backup → Back Up Now. Keep the phone on Wi-Fi and on charge.
3. Verify the date of the last backup
You'll see the completion time under the button. If it shows an old date, the backup didn't run.
4. Use Quick Start
Place the new phone next to the old one and go through the setup assistant. This also transfers eSIM, passwords and home screen layout.
5. Wipe the old phone only at the very end
Only after verifying everything works on the new phone: Settings → General → Transfer or Reset iPhone → Erase All Content and Settings.
Which iPhone to buy if you want to save on iCloud
If you don't want to pay for a bigger iCloud plan, a simple approach is to get a phone with more internal storage and keep photos locally with regular backups to a computer.
Practical recommendation: 128 GB is a sensible minimum today, 256 GB is the sweet spot for most people, and 512 GB and up makes sense if you shoot video. The price difference between 128 and 256 GB on a pre-owned phone is usually significantly lower than two years of a bigger iCloud subscription.
With us you can see for each model which capacities we currently offer, including the measured battery health of the specific unit — always 86–100%. Every phone has passed a thorough technical check, comes with a 2-year warranty, and is unlocked for all carriers. Delivery takes 2 business days, or you can pick up the phone at selected iLoveServis stores, where we'll also help you with data transfer and iCloud setup on the spot.