How to get up to 8GB of extra storage on your iPhone

A lack of storage can be one of the most frustrating problems with your iPhone or iPad, but the latest update from Apple should be able to clear you some extra space.

Apple has begun using a new way of formatting storage - which is more efficient on the iPhone and iPad - and arrives with the most recent update to iOS 10.

iOS 10.3 brings in the new tweak meaning you may be able to free up space on your phone. It's different for each device, so you may have a different amount of free space compared to another device.

Check your storage

If you want to know how much extra storage you're going to get, you'll need to check how much space you're currently using on your iPhone or iPad.

Head into the Settings app, scroll down and press on General before going down further to Storage and iCloud Usage on the next page. 

Take a quick screenshot by pressing the power and home buttons, then you can compare this to your storage after you've upgraded.

How to download iOS 10.3

For this you'll need to press back to get to the General page in the Settings app, then press Software Update at the top of the page.

If the upgrade is ready for you, you'll be able to press download and install. While you wait for that to download and install, why not read our 115 essential iOS 10 tips and tricks?

Check your storage again

Once your iPhone or iPad has finished downloading and installing iOS 10.3, it's time to go see how much extra space you've got to play with.

Some have reported around 7.8GB of extra space on the 256GB version of the iPhone 7 Plus.

We found the iPhone 7 with 256GB of storage had 5.85GB of space used for software on iOS 10.2 but the upgrade to iOS 10.3 upped it to 6.6GB. But we've seen around 3GB of extra room on the iPhone 7 with it changing from 242.7GB to 245.5GB. 

Testing on an iPhone SE, we found the software to be 0.6GB lighter after the phone was upgraded and there was also an extra 2GB of space available.

We also tested it a 256GB iPad Pro 12.9 and found it used an extra 0.3GB for software, but offered up over 2GB extra of available storage.

• Check out our 115 essential iOS 10 tips and tricks?