How to Clear Cache on iPhone
Learn how to clear cache and browsing data on your iPhone to free up storage. Current Settings paths, what each step recovers, and what it will not fix.
Our iPhones fill up over time, and for years we treated that as the same problem as the phone feeling slower. It is not. Apple attributes iPhone slowdowns to the battery aging chemically, which triggers performance management on the CPU and GPU to prevent unexpected shutdowns. Cached files are not part of that explanation. What cache actually costs you is storage, and that is worth getting back.
Clearing the cache does not delete your photos, contacts, or messages. It removes temporary files that apps create to load faster but that eventually just take up space and cause problems. Think of it like clearing out a junk drawer. Nothing you care about leaves. You just get the space back.
This guide covers the two types worth your time: Safari's browsing data and individual app caches. How much you get back depends entirely on how you use the phone. A heavy podcast or streaming habit can hand back several gigabytes, and a lightly used phone might return almost nothing. Neither result means you did it wrong.
Clear Safari browsing data
Open Settings, tap Apps, then select Safari. Scroll down and tap Clear History and Website Data. Pick a time range, choosing All History to clear everything, then tap Clear History. Safari used to sit in the main Settings list. iOS 18 moved every app's settings into a single Apps section, so that is where it lives now, and Apple's current instructions say to go to Settings, tap Apps, then select Safari. If you are scrolling the top level of Settings and not finding it, that is why. This clears your history, cookies, and cached files. Bookmarks and saved passwords are untouched, and Apple notes that your AutoFill information is not changed either. If your other Apple devices are on the same iCloud account with Safari turned on, clearing here clears the history there too.
Heads up: Clearing Safari data logs you out of most websites. You will need to sign in again to sites like Gmail, Amazon, and social media. Make sure you know your passwords or have them saved in a password manager before clearing.
Close your Safari tabs
Open Safari and tap the Tabs button, the two overlapping squares in the toolbar. To close everything in one go, touch and hold Done, then tap Close All Tabs. To close tabs one at a time, tap the Close button in the upper-right corner of each tab. Closing tabs is not clearing cache. A tab you have not opened in a while reloads from the network when you go back to it, because the phone has already let go of it. Close tabs because a switcher with two hundred cards in it is unusable, not because you were promised a faster phone.
Check which apps use the most storage
Go to Settings, then General, then iPhone Storage. Wait a few seconds for the list to load. It shows every app sorted by how much space it uses. Tap into any app and you get two numbers, the size of the app itself and its Documents & Data. The second one is the cache, the downloads, and anything else the app has held on to, and it is the number worth judging. A small app with a large Documents & Data line is the one with room to give. Apple's storage article covers the same screen and the categories underneath it. Anything you stream or download is usually where the surprise is.
Offload or delete heavy apps
Tap any app in the iPhone Storage list. You will see two options. Offload App removes the app but keeps its data, so reinstalling it restores everything. Delete App removes everything including saved data. For apps you use regularly but that have ballooned in size, deleting and reinstalling is the cleanest approach, because it forces the app to rebuild its cache from scratch. Make sure anything the app stores only on the phone is backed up first. Offloading keeps the app's data, so it will not shrink that part. For apps you no longer use, just delete them.
Good to know: Turn on Offload Unused Apps in Settings, then Apps, then App Store. The same switch also sits in Settings, then General, then iPhone Storage. It removes apps you have not opened in a while and keeps their data, and the icon stays on your Home Screen with a small cloud on it. Tapping that icon downloads the app again, which needs a connection and needs the app to still be on the App Store. It is not a safe place to park something that has been pulled from sale.
Clear cache in specific apps
Some apps have their own cache clearing option inside their settings. In Spotify, tap your profile picture, tap Settings and privacy, tap Data-saving and offline, then under Storage tap Clear next to Clear cache. Spotify keeps that path current on its own support page, and clearing the cache there leaves your downloads alone. In Slack, it sits under your profile picture, then Preferences, then Debug & Reset Cache. Not all apps offer this, but the ones that do usually keep it under a Storage or Data section in their own settings. Check your heaviest apps one by one. This can recover significant space without losing your login or preferences. These paths were checked in September 2026. App menus move, so if the wording has changed by the time you read this, the app's own support page is a better answer than any guide, ours included.
That is all there is to it. We clear Safari's website data every month or so and offload the apps we have not opened since last summer. What comes back is storage. Speed is a separate question with a separate answer. If the phone is slow rather than full, a restart is the cheap thing to try next. It clears system memory and stops any background process that has got stuck. Apple's steps differ by model. On iPhone X and later, hold either volume button and the side button until the power-off slider appears. On iPhone 6, 7, 8, and the second or third generation SE, hold the side button on its own. Drag the slider, wait 30 seconds, then press and hold the side button until the Apple logo appears. If it is still slow after that, open Settings, tap Battery, then Battery Health, which iPhone 14 and earlier label Battery Health & Charging. A battery that has aged into performance management will hold the phone back no matter how much cache you clear, and that is a battery to replace rather than a drive to tidy.
Questions we get asked about this
Answers from experience, not a textbook.
No. Cache is temporary data that apps create to load content faster. Your photos, messages, contacts, and app data are stored separately. Clearing cache removes things like website images Safari downloaded, thumbnails an app pre-loaded, and temporary files from streaming services. Your personal content stays exactly where it is.
Every month or two is a good rhythm for Safari. For app caches, check iPhone Storage every few months and address anything that looks oversized. You do not need to clear everything constantly. Caches exist because they genuinely speed things up. The problem only comes when they grow too large and start competing for the limited storage space on your phone.
Usual suspects are cached data in apps you do use, your photo library, and the System Data category (older versions of iOS called it Other). The System Data category is worth understanding before you fight it. Apple describes it as holding non-removable caches and logs, Siri voices, fonts, and the Spotlight index, so a chunk of it is not yours to clear. Watching it refuse to shrink is normal rather than a sign something is broken. iCloud backups are not one of them, because they are stored in iCloud rather than on the phone. Check iPhone Storage in Settings to see the breakdown. Messages with lots of photos and videos can also take up surprising amounts of space. Tap Messages in the storage list to see per-conversation usage and delete old threads with large attachments.
Unfortunately, no. Apple does not provide a one-tap option to clear all app caches simultaneously. You need to handle Safari and each app individually. This is by design, as Apple wants apps to manage their own data. Third-party cleaner apps cannot reach inside another app's storage at all, because iOS sandboxing walls each app's data off from every other app. The manual approach in this guide is the most reliable method.
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