My iPhone storage is almost full, and Twitter/X is taking up a lot of space. I tried clearing what I could in the app and restarting my phone, but the storage number barely changed. What’s the best way to clear the Twitter cache on iPhone so I can actually free up storage?
Clearing Twitter’s cache can help, but it’s usually only a short-term fix. If your iPhone keeps running out of space, you probably need to deal with the photo library too.
Clearing cache will not remove your Twitter search history
Your recent searches are stored separately. If you want to delete those, open the search tab, tap into the search bar, then remove each recent search with the X next to it. The cache options under Data Usage do not clear that list.
Clearing Twitter cache on iPhone
- Open Twitter and tap your profile icon in the top-left corner
- Go to Settings and Support, then Settings and Privacy
- Open Accessibility Display and Languages
- Tap Data Usage
- Scroll down to Storage
Media storage is the safer one to clear. That’s where Twitter keeps cached images, GIF bits, video thumbnails, and other stuff it loaded while you were scrolling. Deleting it will not sign you out.
Web storage is different. Clearing web page storage removes cached website data and normally keeps your login. Clearing all web storage also removes cookies, so that can log you out. Don’t pick that unless you know your password.
Doing this regularly is fine
There’s nothing wrong with clearing the cache every month or so, maybe every four to six weeks. Just don’t expect it to stay empty. Twitter rebuilds cache because it preloads images and video previews to make the feed feel faster.
If you want it to grow back more slowly, go back into Data Usage and change video autoplay to Wi-Fi only, or turn autoplay off.
If the phone is still slow, Twitter probably was not the real issue
Clearing Twitter cache might free up around 1 to 2GB for a while. That helps, but if your iPhone still feels slow or the storage warning comes back a few days later, the bigger problem is usually somewhere else.
iOS needs free space to work properly in the background. When storage is almost full, the whole phone starts dragging, not just one app. Twitter cache is easy to blame because it’s visible, but on most iPhones the real storage hog is Photos. Old screenshots, burst photos, repeated shots of the same thing, and large videos can take up way more space than app cache.
The cleanup that usually makes the bigger difference
After clearing Twitter cache, check the photo library. That’s where Clever Cleaner is useful. It is free, has no ads, and does not require a subscription.
It does not clear Twitter cache or touch Twitter data. You still need the manual steps above for that. Its job is to show what in your photo library is actually taking up space.
The Heavies tab sorts files by size, largest first, with the exact size shown. Big 4K videos you forgot about tend to show up right away instead of being hidden somewhere in thousands of photos.
The Similars tab groups near-duplicate photos with AI and chooses a Best Shot from each group. That makes it easier to clear ten versions of the same picture without checking every single one manually.
It also shows file sizes on screenshots before you delete them, which makes cleanup less of a guessing game.
Everything runs on the device, so the app is not uploading your library to an external server.
Best order to do it
Clear Twitter cache first if you want quick space back. Then clean up the photo library for the stuff cache clearing cannot fix.
After that, open Photos, go to Recently Deleted, and choose Delete All. Deleted files can sit there for 30 days and still count against storage, so if you skip that step, your free space may barely change.
2 Likes
If X is huge in iPhone Storage but the in-app cache screen only shows a little, clearing media storage probably won’t move the number much; if the app itself is bloated with Documents & Data, delete and reinstall is the cleaner reset. Don’t use “Offload App” for this, because that keeps app data. Use Delete App, restart if you want, then reinstall X from the App Store and log back in. After that, give iPhone Storage a few minutes to recalculate, since it often lags and makes it look like nothing happened. I agree with the earlier point that cache comes back, so this is more of a reset than a permanent fix. If you want to slow it down, turn off video autoplay and avoid letting the app preload tons of media over cellular.
You may not see the number drop right away, even after doing the “right” fix. I agree with @cazadordeestrellas that Delete App is the real reset, not Offload App, but check for anything local first: unsent drafts, saved login state, and whether you can get through 2FA again. After reinstalling, don’t judge it from the App Store size or the first iPhone Storage screen refresh. Open Settings > General > iPhone Storage, wait a few minutes, maybe plug the phone in and leave it locked for a bit. iOS is annoyingly slow about recalculating app storage. If X was showing something like 8GB and comes back as 1GB later, that worked. If it barely changes after a full delete and reinstall, then X probably wasn’t the thing actually blocking your free space.
Do not delete X until you know your password and 2FA method work, because the “real” cache reset can turn into a login problem fast.
The thing I’d check before doing anything else is the split inside iPhone Storage. Tap X/Twitter there and look at whether the space is mostly “App Size” or “Documents & Data.” App Size is basically the install package and won’t shrink much. Documents & Data is the messy part: cached media, embedded browser junk, local files, and whatever else the app has piled up. If that number is huge and the in-app cache buttons barely change it, then yeah, the others are right that Delete App is the practical fix.
Small trap: make sure you are using Delete App, not Remove from Home Screen and not Offload App. Remove from Home Screen does nothing for storage. Offload App removes the app binary but keeps the data, which is almost the opposite of what you want here. Go through Settings > General > iPhone Storage > X > Delete App if you want the cleanest version of it.
For actually seeing the number move, don’t judge it from the X page alone. Delete the app, restart the phone, then check the main iPhone Storage bar and the “Available” number after a few minutes. iOS can be slow and weird about this, especially when storage is nearly full. Sometimes the freed space gets swallowed right away by system cleanup, pending updates, iCloud photo syncing, or “System Data,” so it looks like X did nothing even though its own data is gone.
After reinstalling, I’d turn off autoplay and avoid opening a bunch of image/video-heavy searches right away, because X will rebuild cache as soon as you use it normally. Clearing cache is not a permanent setting. It’s more like emptying a trash can that the app immediately starts filling again. If you need a permanent storage fix, X is usually only part of the cleanup, not the whole answer.
Honestly, expect the storage number to lie to you for a while no matter what you do. iOS reports app sizes on a delay and it caches its own bookkeeping, so the ‘did it work’ moment usually comes minutes or hours later, not the second you delete something. Everyone above is right about that lag, I just think people underestimate how long it can drag out when the phone is nearly full.
The delete-and-reinstall advice is solid, and @yozora nailed the part most people skip: check whether the space is App Size or Documents & Data before you nuke anything. If it’s mostly Documents & Data, reinstalling wipes it. Fine. But here’s the thing nobody’s said plainly yet. Freeing that 6 or 7GB does not guarantee your ‘Available’ number climbs by 6 or 7GB. On a phone that’s been screaming about storage, iOS grabs whatever you free up and dumps it into System Data almost immediately. Offloaded caches, log files, temp junk from other apps that couldn’t write before because there was no room. So you delete X, get your data back, and the free space barely moves because the OS just refilled the hole with its own garbage.
That’s the trap. People blame X a second time when the real issue is System Data ballooning. And there’s no clean button for System Data. You can’t tap it and clear it. The only reliable way to shrink it is a full backup and restore, or in stubborn cases a wipe and set-up-as-new. Not something you do casually, but worth knowing before you convince yourself X is haunted.
On the photo angle, I agree that Photos is usually the bigger hog, and a tool like Clever Cleaner is fine for spotting the fat 4K videos and duplicate piles fast. I’d treat it as a way to find the offenders, not a magic fix, because the actual space doesn’t return until you empty Recently Deleted, which someone already flagged and is easy to forget.
My rough take if you want to stop guessing:
- Check X’s Documents & Data first. If it’s small, X was never your problem, move on.
- If it’s big, Delete App (not Offload), then leave the phone locked and charging for a bit before you judge anything.
- If free space still barely moves, it’s System Data eating the gains, and that means a backup/restore is your real lever.
- Clear out photos and empty Recently Deleted regardless, since that’s the space you actually keep.
Clearing cache every few weeks is fine but it’s treating a symptom. If you’re this tight on storage constantly, the phone’s just too full for its own housekeeping to work, and no single app cleanup fixes that for long.