Every computer has a storage area for temporary data. This is known as a cache. The primary purpose of data storage is to improve the speed of your device when opening and using a recurrent app or loading websites.
The cache also helps to reduce the amount of data used while using your device. However, the cache will often slow down your device, so you might want to clear it. Instagram, in particular, saves any search you build in the Search and Explore section to help you find your favorite accounts or hashtags faster.
This article will demonstrate how to clear the Instagram cache on an iPhone in order to free up some storage space on the device. This is only relevant if your iPhone is running low on storage space and the Instagram cache is taking up a lot of space; obviously, if that isn’t the case, this won’t help you.
Note for Android users: the Android version of Instagram has a direct “Clear Cache” button under the Instagram Settings section. Android users can simply use that to achieve the same effect. For the time being, the iPhone version lacks a Clear Cache feature, so users must manually uninstall and reinstall the app to clear the Instagram cache.
How to Clear the Instagram Cache on iPhone
Keep in mind that this process requires an active internet connection, and you will need to re-login to your Instagram account when done.
- Open the iPhone’s “Settings” app.
- Navigate to “General,” then “iPhone Storage.”
- Allow all storage data to load.
- Scroll down to find the app list and find “Instagram,” which will have the total storage size taken up by the app next to it.
- Select “Instagram”
- Select “Delete App”
- Confirm that you want to remove Instagram by tapping “Delete App”
- Now, on the iPhone, go to the App Store.
- Locate the “Instagram” app and reinstall it.
You must log back into your Instagram account after reinstalling Instagram. The caches will be removed, and the app’s overall size will be reduced; you can check this manually if desired by returning to the Settings “Storage” section and searching for the Instagram app again.
It is important to emphasize the need to uninstall the app from iOS and then reinstall it. If you want to offload the app instead, it will uninstall the Instagram app but keep the caches stored in “Documents and Data,” essentially having the opposite effect that is intended by not freeing up the cache space.
With that said, using Offload Apps or automatic Offload Apps is a very useful iOS feature for automatically freeing up storage from an iPhone or iPad, but keep in mind that it does not support clear caches and just eliminates the software itself.
This is the only reliably dependable way to Clear Documents and Data from applications on the iPhone or iPad, regardless of the app. There are several third-party apps that have built-in data and cache removal tools; for example, you can manually empty Google Maps cache on an iPhone, and Twitter has a simple cache option as well, but the Instagram app for iOS currently lacks this feature.