If you have ever checked the storage details related to a particular app on your iOS device, you must have certainly noticed that there are some apps that themselves do not take up much space but the ‘Documents & Data’ associated with them eats up a big portion of the storage. This might get you wondering as to what this ‘Documents & Data’ is all about and why is it taking so much space.

When you download the app for the first time, it only takes as much space as is the size of the app file. But, when you begin using the app, it needs to save many details pertaining to your usage and behavior. For example, if you have Facebook app installed, it will save your login details on the device memory. If you have saved any bookmarks, posts, links, or photos, they will also consume the device space.

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The ‘Documents & Data’ could consist of any caches related to the app, message history, sign in information, and any attachments. Let’s take another example. When you stream a video on YouTube app, the video is not saved on your device. However, when you decide to download it, YouTube app will cache the video and it will take the device space. Similarly, Google app or Chrome Browser will save your history and cookies on the local storage of the iPhone.

If you think that a particular app is unnecessarily consuming too much space on your iPhone, here are the ways to delete Documents & Data.

NOTE: Removing the Documents & Data may require you to reconfigure the app all over again. For instance, if you clear the data for WhatsApp, you will need to set it up again using your phone number (which involves an authentication process).

How to Delete Documents and Data on iPhone

Method 1 – Clear ‘Documents & Data’ using Settings

Clearing Documents & Data associated with a particular app is very easy. One way is to launch the app and find the option to delete the saved data in the app’s Setting. But, not all the apps provide this option. So, here are the steps to remove Document & Data applicable to all the apps:

1. Open the Settings menu from the home screen of your iOS device

2. Tap General >Storage & iCloud Usage

3. Choose ‘Manage Storage’

Here you will see the list of all the apps currently installed on your iPhone. You will also see the amount of storage space consumed by each app. Now select the app for which you wish to delete the Documents & Data. You will see the ‘Delete App’ option at the bottom of the next screen. Tap ‘Delete App’ and confirm your action on the next screen.

For example, we are going to delete Chrome.

This will delete the app from your device.

Now, what you need to do is go back to the App Store and download the app again. Once the app has been reinstalled, you go back to ‘Manage Storage’ and select the app one more time. You will see that the ‘Documents & Data’ size has reduced considerably.

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Method 2 – Delete Documents & Data from the “app”

There are some apps that have the option to clear the data without having to uninstall them. Also, you cannot delete the data for the stock apps like Safari, Messages, and Mail. You will need to go the Settings in each app individually and remove the associated ‘Documents & Data.’

Each app has its own Settings and thus no one method will work for all of them. But, finding the option to remove the data is pretty simple and you should be able to find it quite easily. You could remove the messaging history, browsing data, media files, downloaded files, sign in information, and more.

Conclusion

Documents & Data are associated with the installed apps on your iPhone. After a period of usage, the size of Documents & Data exceeds the size of app by several times. If you are looking to restore some space on your iPhone, you may want to remove the Documents & Data associated with some apps. You can uninstall and reinstall the app to restore it back to original state or you could remove data from the app settings.

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