iPhones tend to work brilliantly for a few months after you buy them but slow down after a while. Ever wondered why? This is because every time a user opens a site on the Safari browser or downloads an app, temporary files are created within the storage of the phone. These temporary files are known as a cache. They hog up the memory of the phone and instantly make the system slower. There is not a single kind of cache that gets in our iPhones and hence the process of clearing them also becomes varied. While android phones come with an app that provides the user to clean the cache from time to time, iOS has no such option, but to manually clear the temporary files from each location. The caches could be cleared according to the place they get stored and their types. This guide suggests ways in which the user could both clean the cache that gets stored in the system and also, prevent them from multiplying within the system.
How to prevent app cache on iPhone?
While it is not feasible to stop caches from being formed in the phone system, one could always attempt to try and prevent it. This could be done by the given two methods:
Blocking Cookies:
A cookie may be considered as a temporary file or a small piece of information that is registered in the system, whenever a user visits a site so that the browser can remember the user when he/she visits it next. Most websites give users the option to allow or block cookies. If a particular site does not manually provide the option to do so, the user can always visit Safari and alter its settings so that it does not allow cookies. This could however conceal bits of information from certain web pages. The steps to alter the settings through Safari browser are as follows:
- Visit Settings on iPhone and tap on the Safari option
- Turn on the Block all Cookies toggle button to block all cookies
Using Content Blockers:
Content blockers can be considered app extensions to safari or third-party apps that take permission from Safari to automatically block pop-ups, images, cookies, and other kinds of intrusive, unwarranted content. A few examples of such apps are Adblock, Stands Fair Adblocker, Popper Blocker, and others.
How to clear app cache in iPhone?
The cache in an iPhone could be cleared in various ways. There are three places primarily from which the cache on an iPhone could be cleared. These would include clearing cache from safari, which is the original browser for iOS; clearing cache from individual apps, and then clearing cache from the system as a whole. If a user can clear their system cache, they could easily get rid of system blocks and buffering or slow timed uploads. The way to clear cache from the safari browser would include the following steps:
- Visit the Settings tab and go to the safari browser option.
- Tap the Clear History and Website data option
- Once done, tap on the same option again.
To keep the website data and just delete the cookies, the following steps must be followed:
- Visit the Settings tab and got to the Safari browser option
- Click on the advanced data option and go to Website data
- Tap on Remove all website Data
- To not leave a trail of your search history, turn the private browsing mode on or off accordingly
It must be remembered that by deleting all of the web browser data, cookies, and other spam options, Safari will not forget the details in its auto-fill option.
To clear cache from apps other than the Safari browser, the user can follow the given steps:
- The data from unused apps can be cleared by availing of the Offload apps option from Settings. Then tap on the iPhone storage option and General option. Tap on the offload apps option thereafter. This would not delete the details stored in these apps but just offload the storage being taken up by the unused app.
- A similar procedure can be followed to cancel out the spaces occupied by photos. Tap on the Settings option and then select the General option. From there, tap on the optimize photos option and turn it to the ‘enable’ mode. This would release a little space bogged up by the photos by uploading the photos to iCloud.
- The user could also make his/her phone undergo a system reset to clear up the cache from the system. For this tap on the Settings option. Then go to the general option and tap on the Reset button.
Once there is no more web data, history, or system caches to clean, the color of the setting turns gray, and the user can then be assured that there is no further cleanup to be done.
Conclusion:
The web browser functions by creating small temporary files called cache so it could speed up the user browsing experience. This happens because by saving the information in these temporary files, the browser loads faster. However, if a browser fails to load or the system becomes very slow, clearing cache is one of the most common solutions that can be found on the internet. It must be remembered however that the cache on an iPhone is usually important information that the phone stores and must not be deleted without a cause. But with time, if these caches add up, then some of the space needs to be released. There could be two reasons for doing so, firstly, clearing these files would free up some of the storage space. Secondly, these files could sometimes pose as a hindrance to the normal browsing experience. Thus, the iPhone clear cache searches are amongst one of the most trending iPhone-related troubleshooting searches on Google.
