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Do I actually need a 512GB iPhone?

GusBougadis said:
No I wouldn’t get it. My iPhone XS is 64 GB and it struggled with iOS 18 update . I had to delete a few apps, then re add them after the update. I guess 128G is the minimum I would go.
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What was the smallest size iphone X? I forgot but I had to do that as well.. it was a huge pain in the ass. I had that come up once when I upgraded to ios 18 on my 12 pro but I have the 128GB model with 13.52GB left.
 
splifingate said:
Yup.

I'm paddling in the same boat as you are, but 256 was just fine for me.

I ain't Hollywood!
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Think I was for too long traumatized constantly deleting with 64 GB. Planning for future space is always a tad harder, trying to project for 4-5 five years of device life.

I do have a bucket load of RAWs on the MBP wanting sorting, conversion and many Jpegs to end up locally on the 13 Mini. Also considering replacing the camera body and this will inherently increase file sizes. Additionally I'm limited to a 10GB monthly ph plan so have to factor this in if constantly accessing iCloud, so the current use case works for me.

I know I've spent a bit on 512 GB but it's wonderful just totally removing thought's of storage limitation. Off course the other side of the coin is that one keeps more crap on device also ;)
 
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i4k20c said:
I'm always thinking that I need the next tier up of storage. I currently have a 14pro with 256gb (with 140gb filled up). 33gb of that is messages, 13gb is voice memos, 9 gigs each is for whatsapp, music, photos, and the list goes on.

I've played the game before where i had to constantly delete stuff and it was a frustrating experience for me so i always try to go higher on storage to never deal with it. That said, I have the 2tb icloud plan (with only 330gb filled).

I have the chance to purchase a iphone 16 pro (256gb) or iphone 15 pro (512gb) for $200 cheaper. Originally, i was going to go with the iphone 15 pro due to the higher storage but now i'm wondering if its better to pay a little more and get the new 16pro.

How do you all determine how much storage to get with your phone?
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Do you record videos with your phone? I definitely recommend some form of Apple One, which includes additional iCloud space. But before your data gets backed up to iCloud, your phone must have enough space to hold the entire film (video). If you filmed a 1-hour video (a friend’s wedding or some other memorable event), see how much space it takes up. A video film might be one of the largest single files you’ll ever create on your iPhone. You might be just fine with 256Gb and never need 512.
 
I may be getting a 16 pro max and was wondering it myself but dang $200 extra for 512 is a lot to swallow. Currently with my iPhone 11 at 128GB, I only use up 77GB with much of that being apps. However I likely would take advantage of the video and photo tech in the latest models and those definitely eat up memory, and Im sure if I were to play one of the Resident Evil games that I have on my Mac, on a iPhone that those would also eat up a lot of space. Then I think about the fact that I have iCloud and if I -really- get into using the prores or higher frame video, I can always buy an external SD and connect it.
 
XboxEvolved said:
I may be getting a 16 pro max and was wondering it myself but dang $200 extra for 512 is a lot to swallow. Currently with my iPhone 11 at 128GB, I only use up 77GB with much of that being apps. However I likely would take advantage of the video and photo tech in the latest models and those definitely eat up memory, and Im sure if I were to play one of the Resident Evil games that I have on my Mac, on a iPhone that those would also eat up a lot of space. Then I think about the fact that I have iCloud and if I -really- get into using the prores or higher frame video, I can always buy an external SD and connect it.
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And that $200 extra is effectively a $200 loss since Apple USA sets trade in value regardless of memory capacity.
 
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StoneJack said:
The rule of thumb: buy as much as storage as your budget allows and operate the device accordingly.
Means, if you can buy 1TB do it. OP should buy 512 or 1TB.
If you are good with 128 or less, just manage it and it is also fine.
No more questions.
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If your budget allows you to buy 1TB but you'll only use 256GB, it makes no sense to buy 1TB?
 
I typically buy the base or one level above because Apple charges outrageous prices for storage upgrades, especially in Canada. It should not cost $300CAD to go from 256GB to 512GB. Because of that I don't like to buy storage from Apple. I store my photos in Google photos for $3 a month.
 
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Clean out iMessages, I do get that one would like to keep all of it. I have my set to save one year, with that I have between 1 and 3 Gb of iMessages at any given time, with a year of history. Granted I’m a light user, but 30+ Gb of messages is a very large amount.

My father passed last Christmas, so I exported our entire conversation to a pdf, letting me keep our last year of iMessages.
 
HobeSoundDarryl said:
OP, you might reconsider managing your storage. Else you probably need more and more and more and will never have enough. It's expensive to keep adding to the virtual warehouse for digital hoarding. Consider pruning the many vaults. Odds are high that so much of what is currently stored could be dumped (or archived to a hard drive attached to a computer) and you would never miss it.

Manage your cloud usage. Else you probably need more and more and more. Companies renting a hard drive in the sky love digital hoarding: raise that forever rent. But what if there was no cloud? Could you roll with some other option that has no rent? Yes you can. We all easily did it before iCloud.

33GB of Messages storage reads like the never-ending text message accumulations, common on much tech. Work messages like we work phone calls: start one, chat, then end the call (close the text). When you want to chat with that person again, start a new chat. You'll nearly immediately see about 31GB+ freed up from your device. Just about no one needs a forever record of everything that has been said in every text chat. Immediately save anything to be forever preserved (which is usually not piles and piles of cat videos or similar people send each other) and then delete the messages. If every one of them is precious and must be forever maintained, print them as PDF files you can archive on a single hard drive attached to a computer.

13GB for voice memos seems excessive unless you have a special case where you need that much voice stored and available at all times. Offload the ones you don't need at all times and keep only the ones you do need on device. That should free up a considerable amount of storage on device.

Manage synched music, photos, etc via synch with Mac. In other words, store the whole libraries on Mac and synch only that which you really want on the mobile. You can't listen to 9GBs of music in a few days even if you ran it non-stop. You probably don't look at 9GBs of photos (ever). WhatsApp can be managed just like the 33GB Messages thing described above. Make favorite playlists in Music and sync just those. Make favorite photos albums and sync just those. Just about nobody needs to be carrying around their entire library of such media. Especially stuff like that can't be consumed even if you tried by doing nothing but playing music or looking at photos on device. There's just too many.

How I pick storage when buying a new device
Look at my normal amount on device I already have. If it is within 30% of "full" while applying the above, I need the next tier in the next purchase. Else, I have enough.

An exception consideration: do I heavily travel and shoot a lot of 4K video without a handy way to offload the shoot to a Mac or other storage? If I'm shooting extensive video with no easy way to offload it, I probably buy very big storage so that I'm always ready to capture big video.

I run a business but rarely have more than a few text messages active in messages (because I close conversations when a round to texting is done). I have about 8% of my music library on device (all favorites in a number of playlists). I have about 5% of my photos library on device (all favorites in a few synched albums)... and I utilize only the free iCloud space, pruning anything that piles up in there to get it towards the 5GB limit. If I want to mix up music or photos, I can readily replace some synched playlists & albums with other synched playlists & albums.

If I had 330GB of cloud "need", I'd buy something like a Synology NAS to own my own cloud and drop the rent. You don't say what's in all of that but much of it could probably be locally stored on a hard drive. If every bit of it must be accessible at all times, I'd own my own cloud to not pay the forever rent.

Not everyone should adopt my ways and some may have valid reasons for needing much more storage/cloud. But another way to think about it is through the lens of conservation. What if peak available storage was LESS than we use now and there was no iCloud? How would we make that work? We certainly would make it work. How? We would be more selective about what we store on device and all of our cloud media would likely be on a hard drive attached to a computer. It's not that many years when there was no iCloud and on-device storage was much smaller than today. We made that work just fine.

Else, there will never be enough storage in device and in the cloud... and we will always be piling up more and more media in both (much of which we'll never actually access)... and pay-pay-paying for doing so.
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"Print emails as .PDF files" ? How does one do that?
 
dadders6 said:
"Print emails as .PDF files" ? How does one do that?
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Screenshot 2025-05-30 at 23.44.03.png

Select your Destination when Printing, then "Print" it...
 
I finally upgraded to 512 GB with my 16 pro, and I am very happy I did. It lets me record a lot of videos without worrying about disk space. I also keep my entire music collection on my phone so I don't have to pay for a music streaming service
 
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I buy slightly used iPhones with max storage. Currently rocking a 16 with 512. I love having no limits and having all my stuff and storage and videos and shows. I keep my phone for years so I can justify this and the fact its used and spent less that 800 makes it worth it.
 
I think a better question is how long do you plan on keeping the phone, because that influences the decision making.

If you upgrade every one to two year, stay with the lower sized one and if things get tight, when you update again go for a bigger version.

If you upgrade every 3/4 years then the higher capacity model makes more sense and would be more of a piece of mind.
 
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I went from 64GB iPhone X to a 512GB 15PM and don't regret the jump. I don't think I would ever go above that on a mobile device but then again, I used to think 128GB would be plenty..
 
5167767 said:
An iCloud subscription would eliminate the problem.
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This is going to sound stupid but I pay for 1TB iCloud how does it help me if say I get a lower storage model? If it's back up but it's still on my phone how do I gain any space on my phone? Because if you delete the backed up item on the phone it deletes it from the iCloud.
 
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