Nowadays, an iPhone has become an inevitable part of every user’s life. From capturing your favorite moments to storing important documents, an iPhone can be your ultimate companion. To keep everything running and stay away from taking up all the iPhone storage, sometimes you’d like to have more iPhone storage, right? After all, you need space for everything, including apps, high-quality photos, files, and more. Many users have a common question: how do I buy more storage space for my iPhone? If you also have this question in mind, you have come to the right place. In this article, we discuss how to buy more storage space on an iPhone. You don’t have to wait anymore, we’ll get started right away!
Can I expand my iPhone storage?
You cannot expand the internal storage of your iPhone. Wondering why? This is because iPhones do not have an SD card slot found on some Android smartphones. Every iPhone has built-in high-speed physical storage capacity, which cannot be changed once the device ships. So, if you bought a 128 GB iPhone model, you cannot increase this storage space to 256 GB in any situation. That’s why you should carefully consider storage options when buying a new iPhone. The low storage options may tempt you with relatively affordable price tags, but you may have to make additional purchases later to compensate for that low capacity.
While you can’t expand the physical storage of your iPhone, you can buy more iCloud storage to keep all your important data at your fingertips. This is possible free up space on your iPhone without losing your important data. We have discussed this in detail below.
How to buy more storage on iPhone with iCloud+
You can buy more storage on an iPhone with an iCloud+ subscription. When you create an Apple IDyou get 5 GB of free iCloud storage space to store photos, videos, app data and more. You can access your iCloud data on any Apple device where you are signed in with your Apple ID. While this helps keep some of your data safe, only 5GB of storage isn’t enough for your photos, videos, documents, and other data. To bypass such issues, you can opt for a monthly iCloud+ storage plan. You can choose from storage options of 50 GB, 200 GB, 2 TB, 6 TB or 12 TB. Here’s how to upgrade your Apple iCloud account on an iPhone:
- Open the Settings app on your iPhone and tap [Your name] at the top of the screen.
- On your Apple ID page, tap iCloud.
- From here, scroll down and tap Upgrade to iCloud+.
- If you’re not already subscribed to iCloud storage, choose an Apple iCloud storage plan and tap Upgrade to iCloud+.
- If you already have an iCloud subscription, tap Manage account storage and then tap Change storage plan.
- Then follow the on-screen instructions and verify your Face ID or enter your Apple ID password to confirm the subscription.
While iCloud+ is Apple’s own cloud service, you can opt for third-party cloud storage options like OneDrive, Google Drive, DropBox, and more. Compare prices and storage options and then go for the one that suits your needs.
Other ways to get more storage on an iPhone
1. Free up space on your iPhone
If you don’t want to pay for an iCloud+ plan and get more iPhone storage space for free, here are a few things you can do.
- You should delete data you don’t need delete apps that you don’t use. So, go through the photos, videos, apps, documents and other data on your iOS device and delete unwanted stuff.
- If you have a lot of important data and don’t want to delete it, you should do so backup your iPhone data. Fortunately, there are many ways to keep your data safe. You can use your Mac, Windows PC or free cloud storage services.
- Another way to get more iPhone storage space for free is to make sure you make the most of the free iCloud space. That is possible, for example delete photos from iCloud to delete older photos and ensure you always have room for data that really matters to you.
2. Buy a portable storage device
If you can’t afford to buy more storage space on your iPhone and still want the freedom of having all your important data at your disposal, you can purchase a portable storage drive. It is worth knowing that modern iPhones support external devices that have HFS+, FAT32, AFPS or exFAT file systems. You can easily find flash storage drives that you can connect to your iPhone and keep your important content safe. This way, you can always have extra backup storage to free up internal memory on your iPhone.
3. Trade in your iPhone and buy a model with more storage space
If you have an older iPhone with little internal storage space, it might be time to get rid of your existing phone and buy a new one. As you know, Apple allows you to trade in an older device for a new iPhone. If you’re happy with the exchange value Apple is offering you, great. If not, you can sell it on a third-party platform or at a nearby store that has a lot to offer. This time, make sure you get an iPhone with enough storage space.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What is the difference between device storage and cloud storage?
Device storage (also called physical or internal storage) is the limited amount of storage space your device comes with. You can view the saved data only on that device. The iPhones come with internal storage options of 64GB (iPhone 12 or older only), 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, or 1TB. Once this storage space becomes full, you will no longer be able to add photos, videos, or files to your device. You can delete older data or upgrade to an iCloud subscription.
On the other hand, cloud storage means that the data is stored on the company’s cloud servers, which usually requires a subscription. You can upload data to cloud storage using your phone and then access that data on any device using your account. Some popular cloud storage services include iCloud, OneDrive, Google Drive, DropBox and more.
2. Why can’t I buy more storage space on iPhone?
You can’t buy more storage on an iPhone because there is no SD card slot to expand your iPhone’s internal storage. So your iPhone always has the amount of storage space it originally came with. The only way to get more internal storage space on iPhone is to delete messages, documents, photos and other older data. Before doing this, you should backup your important data so that you can recover iPhone data on purpose.
3. Can I buy more storage on my iPhone with Google One?
Yes, you can expand your iPhone storage with Google Drive. You can browse through it Google One plans and pricingand then choose the one that best suits your requirements. Moreover, you can opt for other cloud storage services such as DropBox or OneDrive subscription.
4. How can I buy free iPhone storage?
You can backup your iPhone and delete older data to get more iPhone storage space for free.
That was all from our side on how to buy more storage on an iPhone. Hopefully this article has helped you understand all the basics so you can easily manage and get more iPhone storage. If you have any doubts, you can always contact us via the comments below. And how do you plan to get more phone storage on your iPhone? We would love to hear your opinion!
