If you are looking for a way to Delete “Documents and Data” on iPhone, it is likely that you are either trying to recover storage space on your iPhone or want to clear the app cache of a particular app that is not functioning properly on your device.
The bad news is that the current version of iOS does not provide any way to remove or delete “Documents and Data” stored by any of the apps on the Local Storage of your iPhone.
Currently, the only way to delete “Documents and data” stored by apps on the internal storage of your iPhone is by removing and reinstalling the apps back on your device.
What is “Documents and Data” on iPhone?
All the Apps installed on iPhone are allowed to store sign-in info, message history, cached data and other app related information and all this information is labelled as “Documents and Data” by iPhone.
Depending on the App, the storage space occupied by its “Documents and Data” can end up becoming larger than the storage space occupied by the App itself.
In addition to storing information on the internal storage of iPhone, apps are also allowed to store information on Apple’s iCloud servers and this information is also labelled as “Documents and Data” in your iCloud Account.
Does Offloading the App Delete its “Documents & Data”?
As you must have noticed, many websites including some reputable ones are advising users to Offload the App in order to delete its “Documents & Data” from iPhone.
However, offloading the App only deletes the space taken up by the App itself and it does not Delete “Documents and Data” stored by the App on your iPhone.
How to Delete “Documents and Data” on iPhone?
As mentioned above, the only way to delete “Documents and Data” is to delete the apps generating the most amount of “Documents & Data” on your iPhone and re-install them back on your device.
1. Go to Settings > General > tap on iPhone Storage.
2. On the Storage screen, scroll down and select the App for which you want to delete its “Documents and Data”.
3. On the next screen, scroll down and select the Delete App option.
4. On the confirmation pop-up, tap on the Delete option to confirm and this will delete the App along with all its “Documents and Data” from your iPhone.
5. Next, open the App Store on your iPhone > search for Name of deleted App in the search bar.
6. Once the App is located, select the App and tap on the install option located next to the App.
Similarly, you can go through other Apps and repeat the above steps to delete “Documents and Data” generated by other Apps on your iPhone.
Delete “Documents and Data” from iCloud
As mentioned above, apps are also allowed to store information on iCloud and this app related information is labelled as “Documents and Data” in your iCloud Account.
If required, you can easily clear or delete the “Documents and Data” stored by all the Apps on iCloud by following the steps below.
1. Open the Settings on your iPhone and tap on your Apple ID.
2. From the Apple ID screen, go to iCloud > iCloud Drive > and tap on Manage storage option.
3. On the next screen, tap on Delete from iCloud to remove all the “Documents & Data” stored by Apps on iCloud.
5. On the confirmation pop-up, tap on the Remove from iCloud option to confirm.
This will delete “Documents and Data” stored by all the apps that have been provided with access to iCloud on your iPhone.