Question :

I have a 16GB iPhone running iOS10, and it freezes whenever I want to take a photo… I get an error message that there’s no memory left on my iPhone so I can’t continue…

I checked and it turns out that I have literally 1KB (yes, only 1KB, not even 1MB…) left as free memory… and most of my 16GB is occupied by Photos.app (about 12GB)…

How do I free up space without deleting valuable photos and videos ?

Answer :

The best way (if not the only) to free up space on your iPhone will be to delete a lot of photos and videos, in your case. The way to do that without running the risk of throwing away photos and videos that you would have liked to backup it this :

• connect your iPhone to your Mac using a USB-cable
• open the Photos.app on your Mac
• click on your iPhone, which is listed on the left side
• now, in the main window, go to the photos that are displayed as ready to import (photos that aren’t on your Mac already are automatically filtered out by Photos.app
• from that selection of (un-imported) photos and videos, select ONLY those photos you want to keep
• import that selection onto your Mac
• first check if all photos and especially all videos (as those are not being transferred automatically through iCloud syncing) you selected have been imported
• then unplug your iPhone’s USB-cable
• then delete all video’s you can, and if that isn’t enough, delete all photos older than about one year from your iPhone
• Please, note that iCould will only contain the most recent photos (usually not the videos)
• now, restart your iPhone by simultaneously pressing the two main physical buttons : both the menu-button (just below the screen on the front side) and the ON/OFF-button (top side or right side)
• then check if you have enough free space on your iPhone now
• if not, delete more photos from your iPhone (in the way explained above)
• …then restart your iPhone