What the Tech: Saving storage for photos

LANSING, Mich. (WILX) - Smartphones are now the primary camera for most people. It’s also the primary way we listen to music, watch videos, send and receive photos, and play games. All that eats up storage so you see this when we go to take a picture or record a video.

Before you go on vacation or attend graduation, you should know how much space you’ll need.

Photos are usually around 2mb, this 22-second video takes up 163 MB of storage. You may want to delete photos and videos, but don’t be hasty. On iPhones, photos are stored in the iCloud. If you’re not careful, deleting them from your phone will also delete them from the cloud, so you’ll lose them forever.

Before you delete photos and videos from an iPhone, turn off iCloud. Never mind the pop-up warning. This will delete the photos from your phone but keep them in the cloud. On this phone, photos take up over 4 and a half gigabytes. Deleting them here won’t affect them in the cloud.

Once you’re finished, turn iCloud backup back on. On an Android device, just make sure the backup is turned on. All the photos get uploaded to Google Photos so you can safely delete them from the phone.

Check apps. Facebook and Instagram can take up tons of space. If you need some space for photos, delete the apps from your phone and download them again which will clear the storage.

Your Facebook and Instagram won’t be affected.

Delete and re-install streaming apps, and if there are apps you haven’t used in a long time, delete them. Especially free games that can not only take up space but drain the battery, even when you’re not using them, and when you return home, connect the phone to a computer and save the photos onto a hard drive so you know they’re saved.

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