Apple offers 5 GB of free iCloud space to everyone, but you’ll run up against that storage limit sooner than you’d think. Device backups, photos, documents, iCloud email, and other bits of data all share that space. If you have multiple iOS devices, you’ll run out even faster. That free 5 GB is per Apple ID, not per device, so it’s a good idea to free up wasted space before paying for more. And here some tips for you to free up your iCloud storage space.

1. Manage Your Backups

Each iPhone or iPad you own automatically backs up data from your installed apps to your iCloud account. This happens when it’s plugged in, locked, and connected to Wi-Fi—so it will generally back up whenever you’re charging it. This ensures you’ll never lose your app data. If your device dies or you need to reset it, you can restore the backup and get all of that data back.
To use less space for backups, look at the apps in the list under “Backup Options” and disable apps you don’t think need to be backed up. When you disable backups for an app, the data will be deleted from your iCloud storage online and won’t be part of future backups.

If you have an old device you no longer use and it appears in the backups list, you can tap on it, scroll down, and select “Delete Backup” to delete the entire backup. If you’re really desperate for space, you can go back to the main iCloud screen, select “Backup” toward the bottom, and then disable “iCloud Backup”.

2. Back Up Photos Elsewhere

Photos can eat up a lot of space. With iCloud Photo Library, iCloud can automatically back up any photos you take to your iCloud account and have them accessible from any of your Apple devices. This can be convenient, but it also means that your iCloud storage can quickly fill up.

To free up space, you can disable iCloud Photo Library and Photo Stream by tapping on “Photos” from the main iCloud screen and disabling these features.

Instead of using iCloud Photo Library, try another app like Google Photos, or  third party app like Syncios iPhone Manager  to backup your photos. They will back up your photos to a separate pool of cloud storage that’s often bigger than iCloud. You’ll have a backup copy of your photos stored online, but you get to keep all that precious iCloud storage for other functions.

3. Delete Documents & Data

iCloud’s “Manage Storage” screen also allows you to manage “Documents & Data.” These are documents, settings, saved games, and other bits of data that iCloud syncs between all your devices. They count toward your iCloud storage, so you may want to delete any files you don’t care about.

Tap an app under the “Documents & Data” section to view files that are taking up space. Swipe a file to the left and tap “Delete” to delete it from your iCloud storage. Be careful when doing this, though, as you could delete important documents and other files you might want to keep.

If none of the above are options you’re willing to consider, then you’ll want to buy more iCloud storage. You can tap on “Buy More Storage” on the “Storage” screen.

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source: howtogeek

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