Go through these tips to cut down the amount of local storage space Apple Music takes up on your iPhone or iPad.

The storage used by high-quality streaming and downloading on Apple Music can quickly balloon to several gigabytes. Once this happens, you may not have sufficient space left for taking pictures, recording videos, downloading new apps, and so forth. Therefore, it’s important that you make some changes if you have an iPhone with base storage.

Restart your iPhone regularly

Switching your iPhone off and back on every few days can automatically clear unnecessary cache and offline data, keeping local storage space in check. I generally restart my iPhone every 4 to 5 days or sooner if something isn’t working right, which happens often in iOS 26.

Stream instead of downloading

Saving songs for offline consumption takes up a lot more local iPhone space compared to streaming. So, if you have fast Wi-Fi or unlimited cellular connectivity, keep just a few of your favorite songs offline and stream the rest.

Turn off automatic downloads

Apple Music lets you enable automatic downloads, which saves every song for offline listening when you add it to your library. While handy for some, this feature can quickly eat up a lot of local space on your iPhone or iPad. So, head to iOS Settings > Apps > Music and turn off Automatic Downloads. You can still manually download songs that you want.

Set a lower download quality

Lossless audio consumes more data and takes up more local space when downloaded offline.

Unless you’re a hardcore audiophile and use high-quality wired earphones/headphones, you’ll notice no difference between Lossless audio and standard audio.

So, go to iOS Settings > Apps > Music and tap Audio Quality. If Lossless Audio is enabled, turn it off, or select Downloads and set it to High Quality (AAC 256 kbps).

Assign a storage limit for downloaded songs

iOS includes a handy Optimize Storage feature that automatically removes songs you haven’t listened to recently when your iPhone runs low on space. However, it will still preserve at least 4 GB of music (about 800 individual tracks), so you continue to have some offline media. Go to iPhone or iPad Settings > Apps > Music > Optimize Storage to turn on this feature and set a minimum storage boundary.

Delete duplicate songs

Just like duplicate photos, contacts, and files, you may have duplicate songs in your Apple Music library. These can be the same tracks or another version of the same song (Live, Clean, Explicit, Acoustic, Lo-Fi, Cover, etc.).

If you have a Mac, use the dedicated duplicate cleaner built into the Music app. Thanks to Sync Library, songs you delete from your Mac will also be removed from your iOS device.

But if you only have an iPhone or iPad, follow these steps instead:

1. Open the Music app and tap Library > Songs.
2. Tap the three dots menu button at the top and select Title to sort all songs by name (A to Z or Z to A).
3. Now, browse through your library, and if you see the same song more than once, delete the version you don’t want to keep.

Get rid of music videos

Video files can take up significant space on your iPhone or iPad. Go to the Library section of the iOS Music app and tap Music Videos to see if you have downloaded some clips. Then, remove the ones you have already watched or no longer want to rewatch.

Free up Apple Music cache

There are easy ways to clear Apple Music cache on Mac and Android. But on iPhone and iPad, you can delete the cache only by doing one of these things:

• Restarting your device
• Turning Sync Library off and back on
• Signing out of your Apple Account
• Or, uninstalling the app completely (mentioned below).

Delete and reinstall the app

And finally, if your Apple Music app size has exceeded several GBs, and you don’t know where to start, the quickest option is to delete the app altogether, which will remove all downloaded songs and also clear any cache and local files.

After you delete the app, restart your iPhone and then download the iOS Music app again from the App Store.

These are some of the most practical ways to reduce the amount of local storage space taken up by Apple Music on your iPhone or iPad. Which of the above tips will you be using?

Also, check out: 50+ tips to free up storage space on iPhone and iPad

Source link: https://www.idownloadblog.com/2026/02/04/reduce-storage-taken-by-apple-music/

In this step-by-step tutorial, we’ll explain how to keep your iPhone or iPad display permanently in grayscale color filter mode to reduce usage while ensuring you see full colors when using the Camera and Photos apps.

Smartphone addiction is widespread among kids, teens, and adults alike. One way to bring down usage is to remove the sensory “hooks” (like screen colors) and make the apps less engaging.

Now, you can always enable the Grayscale filter from iOS Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size > Color Filters. But this will keep your iPhone or iPad screen black and white at all times. As a result, you may not be able to capture beautiful, color-accurate pictures, and also fail to view your photo library as it’s intended to.

Therefore, we’ll show you how to use the built-in iOS automation feature to keep your iPhone or iPad screen in black and white mode except when you’re using the Camera or Photos app. Of course, you can also add some other essential work apps to this excluded list if you want.

Step 1: Create an automation to activate grayscale when you close Camera or Photos

1) Open the Apple Shortcuts app on your iPhone or iPad and go to the Automation tab.

2) Tap New Automation or the plus button and select App.

3) Tap Choose in the App field. Then, select Camera, Photos, or other apps that you want to use in color mode, and tap the checkmark icon.

4) Unselect “Is Opened” and select “Is Closed.” Then, tap Run Immediately, followed by Next.

5) Tap Create New Shortcut.

6) Use the Search Actions bar to find and add the “Set Color Filters” action. Leave everything as it is (i.e., “Turn color filters On”) and tap the checkmark.

You have successfully created an automation that will turn your iPhone or iPad display black and white when you close the Camera or Photos app.

Test it out by opening one of these apps and exiting it. You’ll notice that your device display is in grayscale mode now. If it’s red/green, green/red, blue/yellow, or a color tint filter, head to iOS Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size > Color Filters and set it to Grayscale.

With the first leg done, move to step 2 below.

Step 2: Create another automation to deactivate grayscale when you open Camera or Photos

1) Open the Shortcuts app, go to the Automation tab, tap the plus button, and select App.

2) Tap Choose and select the same apps (i.e., Camera and Photos) that you picked earlier.

3) Leave “Is Opened” as checked and make sure “Is Closed” is unchecked. Then, select Run Immediately and tap Next.

4) Tap Create New Shortcut and add the Set Color Filters action. Then, tap “On” to change it to “Off” and save everything by tapping the checkmark icon.

You have now set up another automation that will turn off the black-and-white screen and restore full-screen color when you open the Camera or Photos app.

With both automations built, open the Camera or Photos app, and your iPhone screen will be in its normal color mode. Then, go out of the app, and the iPhone screen will convert to black and white. You get the idea…

Try these automations on your or your kid’s device and report back to us if your smartphone usage reduces. By the way, Apple makes it really easy to find out how much time you spend in iPhone and iPad apps.

Also, check out:

• 20 simple yet effective tips to reduce your iPhone usage
• How to reduce your child’s Screen Time on iPhone and iPad
• Other automation tips

Source link: https://www.idownloadblog.com/2026/02/03/use-grayscale-smartly-on-iphone/