# My iPhone is full - what do I do? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 31, 2014, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-iphone-is-full-what-do-i-do/694477 "2014-07-31T12:13:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2014, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-iphone-is-full-what-do-i-do/694477/1 "2014-07-31T12:13:56Z")
I’ve got a a lot of photos stored on my iPhone. It’s got to the point that I can’t take new photos or add new apps. I’ve backed the iPhone up to iTunes, but what I really need is to download all the photos to my Mac. How do I do that? Any help would be greatly appreciated. ---
**Author:** ![ryan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a8b319/32.png) [@ryan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ryan)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2014, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-iphone-is-full-what-do-i-do/694477/2 "2014-07-31T12:37:09Z")
[iOS: Import personal photos and videos from iOS devices to your computer](http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4083) ---
**Author:** ![freckafree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/freckafree/32/3050_2.png) [@freckafree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/freckafree)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2014, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-iphone-is-full-what-do-i-do/694477/3 "2014-07-31T13:06:15Z")
For future photos, if you use iPhoto, you can turn on Photo Stream so your photos are automatically shared to iPhoto. Then you can delete them from your phone, but they’ll be saved in your iPhoto library. ---
**Author:** ![Ranger\_Jeff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranger_jeff/32/2065_2.png) [@Ranger\_Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranger_Jeff)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2014, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-iphone-is-full-what-do-i-do/694477/4 "2014-07-31T13:15:46Z")
Email them to yourself. Open and save them on your computer. Then delete them from your iPhone. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2014, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-iphone-is-full-what-do-i-do/694477/5 "2014-07-31T13:19:14Z")
Thank you, **ryan** - I will try that tonight after work. The e-mail option is too tedious - I’ve got a _lot_ of pix! ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2014, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-iphone-is-full-what-do-i-do/694477/6 "2014-07-31T13:22:58Z")
Whenever I plug in my phone, I start up iPhoto. Everything I’ve ever had has been downloaded there ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2014, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-iphone-is-full-what-do-i-do/694477/7 "2014-07-31T13:24:08Z")
thanks for the suggestions about iPhoto - did not know about that. ---
**Author:** ![howye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a9adbd/32.png) [@howye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/howye)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2014, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-iphone-is-full-what-do-i-do/694477/8 "2014-07-31T13:36:09Z")
In iPhoto preferences, you can set it to open iPhoto anytime a camera is connected to the mac, or not to open. Mine is set this way and will automatically ask to import new photos on the iPhone. Of course Photostream has likely already synced those into iPhoto as well, but you will be prompted to import or ignore duplicates. I find that for whatever reason Photostream does not sync every photo, so an occasional plugin to the computer and sync takes care of everything. This is also a good opportunity to edit new photos and sync with my Flickr account. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2014, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-iphone-is-full-what-do-i-do/694477/9 "2014-07-31T13:41:20Z")
Turn it upside-down and shake vigorously, preferably over a data-absorbent surface. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2014, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-iphone-is-full-what-do-i-do/694477/10 "2014-08-01T03:06:49Z")
My first iPhone was a 4 with only 16GB. I bought it primarily to use as my car’s stereo so I checked the data size on my mp3 player, saw I had about 13 or 14 GB of music so I figured that 16GB would be enough. Long story short once I got into using my iPhone for other things I would have to swap out my less popular music and/or apps in order to add new ones. A pain, but easy enough to do with iTunes (and iTunes saves everything). When it came time to upgrade to an iPhone 5 I made sure I got a 64GB this time! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2014, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-iphone-is-full-what-do-i-do/694477/11 "2014-08-01T14:28:48Z")
iPhoto worked! I’ve got working storage space again. Thanks, **ryan**. ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2014, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-iphone-is-full-what-do-i-do/694477/12 "2014-08-01T15:24:11Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > Turn it upside-down and shake vigorously, preferably over a data-absorbent surface. 🙂 You may have to drill a small drain hole in one corner first. 😃 No, please don’t. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![obbn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/d6d6ee/32.png) [@obbn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obbn)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2014, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-iphone-is-full-what-do-i-do/694477/13 "2014-08-01T16:54:05Z")
Okay, slightly relevent, why is it that Apple doesn’t give their iPhones the ability to use a memory card that is so common in the Android world? Maybe the new iPhones have changed, but I had one of the early ones (3 I think) and that plus the lack of a removable battery made me give up forever on them and sick with Android. The iPhone was a good phone and all, it just seemed to me that Apple has made a great plan for a revenue steam, need more space you have to upgrade, need a new battery, send it to Apple and for a fee they’ll install a new one. Very customer unfriendly I think.