How to Reduce the Size of an iPhone iCloud Backup

Every iCloud account comes with 5 GB of free storage, which you can use to save files to the cloud.

One common use of this storage space is for iCloud backups. But as you accumulate files on your device, you may eventually reach a point where that 5 GB of space is no longer sufficient to store your complete backup.

Therefore, you need to either pay to upgrade the amount of storage space that you have, or you need to find a way to reduce the size of the iCloud backup of your iPhone.

Fortunately you have some control over which types of files are included, which allows you to reduce the overall file size so that you can complete the iCloud backup.

Remove Items from iPhone iCloud Backup

This article was written in iOS 8, on an iPhone 5.

The steps below will show you how to remove certain types of files from the iCloud backup for your iPhone. This means that these files will not be included when the next iCloud backup is created, and you will not have a backup copy of them in case you need to restore from it.

Step 1: Open the Settings menu.

tap the settings icon

Step 2: Scroll down and select the iCloud option.

select the icloud option

Step 3: Touch the Storage button.

touch the storage button

Step 4: Touch the Manage Storage button.

select the manage storage option

Step 5: Select the iPhone backup.

select the iphone backup to modify

Step 6: Scroll down and touch the Show All Apps button to see everything that is included in the iCloud backup. You can see how much space each item takes up by looking underneath the name of the app, and you can remove items from the backup by touching the button to the right of it. For example, my Photo Library is not included in my backup in the image below.

touch the show all apps button, then turn off features from the icloud backup

Step 7: Touch the Turn Off & Delete button after deciding that you want to remove an item from your iCloud backup.

touch the turn off & delete button

Now that you know how to reduce the size of an iPhone iCloud backup, you can use this information to adjust the amount of storage it is taking up in your account.

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