How to manage storage on your iPhone

Uninstall apps you never use or offload items you want to keep to online storage sites

The apps I download don’t seem to be all that big, but the free space on my iPhone is disappearing rapidly. How can I tell what’s taking up all those gigabytes?

In the current version of the iPhone’s system software (iOS 9.1), open the Settings icon, choose General and then Storage & iCloud Usage. On the next screen, tap Manage Storage to see a list of all the apps installed on your phone.

When you tap to select one of the apps from the list, the Info screen shows you how much space the app takes and how much space files related to that particular app consume. For example, a third-party camera app may take up only about 80 megabytes of room, but the photos you have snapped with it might be sitting on 2 gigabytes of your iPhone’s available space. Once you identify the apps taking the biggest bite out of your phone’s storage, you can start paring. Deleting photos, videos, old podcasts and other files you do not need, uninstalling apps you never use or offloading items you want to keep to online storage sites can help.

Locally saving word files

When I save Word 2013 documents, the system always wants to automatically store them on Microsoft’s cloud storage service, which I never use. I keep the files on my computer and would like it to be easier to just save them there, like it used to be in older versions of Word. How do I do this? When it was released, Microsoft Office 2013 included integration with SkyDrive, Microsoft’s online file storage service that is now known as OneDrive. Part of this integration includes saving files to the cloud by default, but you can change this in Word, Excel and other programs in Office 2013.

Open Microsoft Word, and in the Ribbon toolbar click File. Select Options and click Save on the left side of the box. The settings for how and where files are saved are listed here.

If you want to bypass the program’s “Backstage view” (the big screen showing file management options) to go right to your computer’s desktop and folders, turn on the checkbox next to “Don’t show the Backstage when opening or saving files.” If you do not use online storage services to save files, turn off the checkbox next to “Show additional places for saving, even if sign-in is required.” Finally, turn on the checkbox next to “Save to Computer by default.” Click the OK button when you are finished.

Tip of the Week

Thanks to a bigger screen, browsing the Google Play Store from your computer’s browser can be a more efficient way to research and compare possible apps for your Android device. When you are logged into the account you use for your device on the Google Play website and find software you like in the Apps section, look under the name of the app on its description page to make sure it is compatible with your hardware.

If you have multiple devices linked to your Google account, select the one you want from the Choose a Device menu and click Install. If the app costs money, once you have paid the price, the app will download on your chosen device.