Storage is the sneakiest part of buying an iPhone: pay too little and you spend years deleting photos; pay too much and you've bought space you'll never touch. The good news is that this decision doesn't need a guess. Your current phone has been keeping score the whole time — you just have to look before you order.
Your next iPhone's right size is written on your current iPhone. Read it first.
The 30-second check
- Open Settings > General > iPhone Storage on the phone you use now.
- Read the headline number — how much of your current capacity is actually used — and glance at the biggest categories underneath (photos, messages, apps, video).
- Note what's growing. Photos and video almost always grow year over year; apps and downloads mostly stay flat.
Turn the number into a decision
- Well under half full? A 256GB phone gives you your current life, copied over, with room to spare. That's the comfortable pick for most people.
- Close to full, or constantly offloading? Go 512GB. The extra space buys you two to three years of not thinking about storage — which is really what you're paying for.
- Shoot lots of video? Weight this one category heaviest. A few long 4K clips outweigh months of photos, and video habits rarely shrink.
Before you pay for the bigger phone
- Check the screen's own suggestions — the iPhone Storage page flags big attachments, old downloads, and unused apps. Clearing those first tells you your real usage, not your clutter.
- Plan headroom for 2–3 years, not for the phone you'll have in five. Libraries grow; a size that fits today with a third free is the sweet spot.
- Then pick the size that fits your real use — and stop second-guessing. The check took 30 seconds and it's your data, not a salesperson's average.
Team 256 or team 512 — either can be right. What makes it right is that your own phone made the call.
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