Buying a new computer?
Buying a new computer?
The biggest mistake I see when buying a new computer is buying too small a hard drive. Happens all the time! I've started so many data transfers only to discover the new computer has less space than the old one. This is usually because people go to Apple.com, start shopping, then buy the least expensive one.
As a general rule, almost no one should be buying anything smaller than a 1TB drive. Keep in mind, "memory" (aka RAM) is different than hard drive space. Unless you are a professional photographer, musician, or video editor, RAM is not as important as it once was so that's not where to invest your money. Instead, you need to consider a larger hard drive. The best thing to do is find out what size drive you currently have and how much of that drive you're currently using. Then base your decision on that. To find this information, go to System Settings/General/Storage. Example:
Don't get too worked up about what you see here. There's a lot of mislabeled data here. For example, an old music library that is no longer needed might be categorized as "documents". So don't worry too much about the labeling. If you're only currently using half of the space of your drive, you may be able to get away with buying the same size drive on your new computer. However, consider that our phones are constantly shooting higher and higher resolution pictures and videos and those take up space even when you'e chosen to optimizer your photo library.
While there is a way to store lots of data on the cloud, nothing beats good old fashioned local storage! In some cases, we are able to find unnecessary data that can be deleted but we'd need to work together before hand to determine that of course. If you have any questions as to which model is best for you, or you'd like to try and reduce the amount of old files before you purchase, I'm happy to walk you through what I think fits you best then assist with the data transfer once it arrives. Here's a quick guide to what you'll need for the data transfer ahead of our session. And as always, please email me if have additional questions.
TLDR: buy a big hard drive. Don't buy "memory" aka RAM.
I'm out of iCloud storage space
Now I’m at capacity and my phone isn’t backing up. I’m ready to pay for your assistance, unless you have any magical Fix off the top of your head?
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Contacts alone wouldn't create so much space that would cause your iCloud space to reach over capacity. But by the looks of it, you have more backups than you need. Should be a simple fix. On your Mac do this:
Go to System settings: iCloud: Manage Storage and remove one or two backups. I predict you have more than 2. You really only need one per device. ie; iPad, iPhone. Select one or more older ones and delete.
The other thing to consider is why are those backups taking so much space? One of two reasons. Either A: they're just too many of them and you need to delete as stated above or B: you are storing your picture locally on the iOS devices which is unnessasary. iCloud already stores copies of your pictures so having them stored in their original format then asking iCloud to backup the device is redundant. So check that. On each device go to settings: iCloud: Photos: Keep originals or Optimize. You want Optimize.
Which hard drive to get?
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ersonally I would avoid getting a 356 drive. 512 minimum these days in my opinion. I run into too many people who are out of space on 256 even just as minimal users.
How can I free up space on my iPad?
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You can go into Settings/General/iPad Storage.
Once there, you'll see a list of all the categories taking up space on your iPad.
Often it's Podcasts, Photos, Audiobooks, Messages, etc…
Depending on what you see there, the next steps vary. You can choose to only optimize your photos library if that's taking up space,
You can choose to remove movies you may have stored locally.
You could tell your iPad to only save the last 30 days of text messages if that's the issue.
So overall, there's no one button to just recover space. It all depends on what's taking up the space in the first place.
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